Acknowledgements are gratefully given to the former Australian
Women Photographers research project for biographical information
on Ruth
Hollick and May and Minna Moore, compiled from members of their
respective families. Further information on the project, which
covers the years
1860-1940, may be directed to the National Gallery of Australia
Research library which has acquired this archive. The remainder
of the entries have been compiled from families, friends and records.
The only history of Australian photography
then published,
Jack Cato's The Story Of The Camera In Australia is the major source
of information on the pictorial era.
CECIL W. BOSTOCK 1884-1939
Cecil Westmoreland Bostock was born
in England and came with his parents to New South Wales in 1888.
His
father, George Bostock, a bookbinder, died shortly after in 1892.
Cecil was first apprenticed as an engineer in the Waverley Tramway
Workshop but left home around 1901 after conflicts with his mother
over his desire to be an artist. Little is known of Bostock's
activities until around 1916 when he is listed as a secretary of
the Photographic
Society of N.S.W. and a foundation member of the Sydney Camera
Circle. As well he was a member of the Commercial Artists' Association
of
New South Wales, suggesting that he worked in that field.
Whether
Bostock was already establishing a professional photography studio
at this time is unclear. The'Little Studio in Phillip Street'
where 'The Circle' was formed may have belonged to Bostock. Harold
Cazneaux
also appears to have used Bostock's Phillip St. studio in Denman
Chambers whilst Bostock was away on war service 1917-20. 'The
Circle'records show that their meetings were held in Bostock's
studio/s until
1921.
Bostock was discharged from the army in February 1920 in
Sydney, and shortly after married a girl he had met in London
when stationed
there for six months in 1919. Bostock joined the Royal Photographic
Society while in London and generally involved himself in photography
circles as well as in arranging a one-man show of his watercolours
of war scenes at the Adelphi Gallery held in 1920.
From
1920 Bostock worked as a professional photographer with studios
in
various city locations. His studio gained a reputation
for advertising
and industrial illustration - a new field in those years.
Max Dupain (q.v.) started his career in Bostock's studio working
there from
1930-34.
Bostock
was a contradictory and erratic personality; his graphic work
was colourful and decorative but his photographs
austere
and unmanipulated, relative to his pictorialist colleagues.
Bostock rarely adopted the soft-focus, and painterly printing
processes,
such as
bromoil, so characteristic of the era.
As early as 1917,
Bostock produced an album proudly titled: A Portfolio
Of Art Photographs (see cat no 1) containing ten small photographs more restrained
than most 'art photographs' of the day. His work was occasionally
praised
or criticised for being too 'photographic'!
Just
prior to his death
from cancer, Bostock was instrumental in forming The
Contemporary Camera Groupe (sic) which was designed to unite artists
and photographers. 'The Groupe' held a first and only exhibition
in December 1938,
for which Bostock designed the catalogue. He had previously
edited and
designed the catalogues for the Australian Salon exhibitions
in 1924 and 1926. The logo and 'Declaration' of the Sydney
Camera Circle
were also his work. Bostock, who was a skilled craftsman
and bookbinder,
also bound various albums for the 'The Circle' (examples
of this work were on display during the exhibition).
Bostock
supported many efforts to establish photography as an art yet
his own concepts appear to be not limited to pictorialism's
aesthetic. Cat nos 5, 9 show Bostock's interest in the big
prints,
glossy surfaces
and geometric pattern which were becoming the vogue with
young photographers in the late 1930's.
Unfortunately,
Bostock died
in
debt, estranged
from his wife and child and most of his studio effects
were sold at auction so that only a scattered body of work remains.
Some
of his work appeared in the photographic journals and he
was also largely
responsible for the illustrations to The
Book Of The Anzac Memorial N.S.W. (1934).
JACK CATO 1889-1971
F.R.P.S. 1916.
John Cyril
Cato was born near Launceston, Tasmania and was inspired
by the career
of his cousin, John Watt Beattie, a renowned topographical
photographer, from whom Cato learnt the basic chemistry of
photography. Around 1909 Cato formally joined Beattie's studio
to set up a high-class protrait service.
Cato
had studied art under Lucien Dechaineux and portraiture under
photographers, Percy Whitelaw and John Andrew. Pictorialism
had begun to create
a taste for more elaborate portrait studies than the cliched
19th century studio shot posed beside prop furniture. Cato
was to introduce
the new style to Beattie's clients.
From 1909-1913 Cato worked
in London, first for Walter H. Barnett the leading society portraitist,
and then Claude
Harris (see
cat no 10) who specialised in artistic theatre pictures.
Later Cato
worked as a freelance theatre photographer under the patronage
of Dame Nellie
Melba.
In
1913, Cato left London to explore the scenic and business possibilities
in South Africa. He worked as an expedition
photographer for Professor
Cory of Grahamstown University and gained a Fellowship
of the Royal Photographic Society in 1916 for his ethnographic
work.
After war
service in South Africa, Cato returned to Tasmania to
recuperate and then set up a studio in Hobart in 1920. Later, in
1927,
Cato moved his family to Melbourne where he again was
assisted by
Dame Nellie Melba's patronage. His studio was one of
the best-known for portrait work until 1947 when Cato retired
to concentrate
on
writing The Story of The Camera in Australia (1955),
the only history of photography in Australia to date.
He was encouraged by
the success
of his autobiography, I Can Take It (1947).
Cato
was not a regular exhibitor at pictorial salons nor did he write
reviews
on local
shows. He preferred to show his work in thematic
one
man shows.
HAROLD
PIERCE CAZNEAUX 1878-1953
Hon F.R.P.S. 1938.
Harold
Cazneaux was born in New Zealand. The family returned to Australia
in 1886 where
his father,
Pierce Mott, who spelt his name 'Cazneau', gained
a reputation as an 'operator' (as the camera portraitists
were
known),
at Freemans in Sydney and Hammer & Co., Adelaide.
Harold
began his working life at 17 as an artistretoucher at Hammer's.
He studied art at night at the School of Design directed by H.
P.
Gill but was not interested
in photographic
art until
seeing
the
work of John Kauffmann (q.v.) and early pictorialists
at the annual exhibitions of the South Australian
Photographic Society between 1898-1903. In 1904, Cazneaux moved
to Sydney to take a better position at Freeman's, first as an
artist retoucher, but later as the chief camera operator. Once
in Sydney, Cazneaux was able to begin his own photography with
his first camera - a Midge Box camera, which he used to take
pictures to and from work. He met other amateurs and was introduced
by one of these, Norman Deck, to the Photographic Society of
N.S.W. in 1907.
By
1909, Cazneaux was sufficiently established to mount a one-man
show at the Society's rooms.
If not the first such show, Cazneaux's exhibition
was probably the first to establish the idea
of the photographer-artist, as it was well
received by artists and Press. At this exhibition,
Cazneaux made the acquaintance of Sydney
Ure Smith, who later in 1920 appointed Cazneaux
as official photographer to The Home magazine,
just at the time when Cazneaux was attempting
to establish himself as a freelance photographer.
He
had resigned from Freeman's after suffering a nervous breakdown
in 1918. Studios such
as Freeman's were still very 'Victorian' in the
cliched studio portraits they turned out,
and the sweatshop conditions under which the staff
worked. For Cazneaux who was interested
in all the new ideas in photography and preferred
to work outdoors, the situation became
impossible. Yet he felt unable to leave as he had married
in 1905 and had a large family to support.
Cazneaux
first worked independently from Bostock's studio in Denman
Chambers, Phillip
St. but
from 1920 he worked from his home (which
he had been able to purchase with the aid
of prize
money for 'A Kodak Happy Moment' competition)
in Roseville. The assignments for The
Home provided scope and stimulus beyond the range of
the work shown at pictorial salons. The Home
was a promoter of modernism and Leon Gellert
in
particular encouraged experimentation.
Cazneaux
had first gained a reputation for the spontaneity of his outdoor
shots. Cat no 18 the 'Razzle
Dazzle' had even drawn considerable attention
at the London Salon when H. Snowden Ward
reviewed the show for The Photograms
of the Year (1911
p. 288). However from the late twenties,
Cazneaux's work shows a remarkable welding
of the romantic
atmosphere of pictorialism with the dramatic
forms, angles and lighting which were
part of the vogue for modernism in art. (see cat nos 23, 28)
Cazneaux's
industrial pictures and Flinders Ranges landscapes of the thirties
have
a monumental scale quite uncharacteristic
of
any other Australian
pictorialist.
In
1938, Cazneaux also exhibited with The Contemporary Camera Groupe
but
became increasingly
disheartened
by the modern trends in photography
which he felt were cold and mechanistic
or
involved with novelty and not the
universal beauty
the
pictorialists sought.
Cazneaux,
though depressed by W.W.11, continued working until his death
in 1953. In 1952,
he was honoured with a national
tribute
evening and earlier in 1938 had
received an Honorary
Fellowship of The Royal Photographic
Society. A fuller biography is
contained in the
National Library of Australia monograph
on his work
published in 1978. Cazneaux's pictures
were extensively published in Sydney
Ure Smith
publications
in his lifetime as well as the A.P. R. and H.P.J. magazines and in the
annual Photograms
of the
Year.
NORMAN
C. DECK 1882. [deceased 1980]
Norman
Cathcart Deck was born in Sydney and was first introduced to
photography in 1894 after seeing his brother
develop a family snapshot (see cat no 32a). Norman first
learnt photography from his brother, and later, a teacher during
his
school days (1896-1902) at Sydney Grammar School. He became
the youngest member of the Photographic Society of N.S.W. in
1896.
In 1906, Deck graduated from Sydney University as a Bachelor
of Dentistry, first practising in Cowra, New South Wales
then Queensland before returning in 1909 to establish a practice
in
Sydney with his brother.
From
1903, Deck began exhibiting and won his first gold medal in
1905 for a picture 'Where Two
Paths Meet' (late
print and negative in A.G.N.S.W.). By 1904, Deck
was an active speaker and demonstrator for the Photographic Society of
N.S.W. and later (1909) of the Ashfield District Camera
Club, which had been formed
by his friends 'Mons' Perier and Frank Hurley. Deck served as President
of both societies. In 1912, Deck held a one man show
of his work at Harrington's, probably
at the suggestion of Henri Mallard (q.v.). Deck was a popular speaker
at Society meetings as he had both a sound technical grasp
of photographic chemistry and
the aesthetics of pictorialism. Several of his formulas to do with factorial
development, and the problems of proportional reducing for
bromide printing were published
in the
Kodak formulary, and other journals. He was an expert in bromide printing
both technically and including the aspect of 'artistic control' even
to the final
mounting.
In
1913, after a visit to the Solomon Islands, Deck decided to
join his brother and sister in Mission work in this area.
He returned to the Islands
in 1914 and
served there throughout two world wars until 1948. Despite the difficulties
of photographing under tropical conditions, Deck continued to exhibit
in Australian
salons and to photograph both in the Islands and Australia during furloughs.
In 1921, Deck was made an honorary member of the Sydney Camera Circle
on one such visit home.
In
retirement, Deck continued to make photographs on several overseas
trips and to reprint his earlier negatives
as his vintage prints had
been largely
lost
or destroyed in the Tropics. Cat nos 41 and 113 have been attributed
to Deck and are probably close to the appearance of his early prints.
Cat
no 32 also
shows some of Deck's earliest prints. The prints on exhibition though
late in date are faithful in general style to the style of the pictorial
era,
but uncharacteristic
in size and print surface. A fuller biography was published by Max
Wilson in Australian Photography magazine August 1978.
ARTHUR
DICKINSON (active
late 1920's-1940's)
F.R.P.S. 1938
Very
little biographical information is available. Dickinson began
exhibiting in the late 1920's and was trained
by Monte Luke.
He became a partner
in Dickinson-Monteith studio. Cat no 42 was considered daringly
modern when first exhibited.
MAX
DUPAIN 1911. [deceased 1992]
Maxwell
Spencer Dupain was born in Sydney where his
father operated a modern gymnasium. He became interested
in photography as a schoolboy at Sydney Grammar School, which
led to an apprenticeship
in Cecil Bostock's
(q.v.) studio. Dupain worked with Bostock from 1930-34 before
setting up a studio of his own in Bond St.
Dupain
joined the Photographic
Society of N.S.W. in 1928
and began exhibiting work in a pictorial style, though
even in bromoil, his pictures show an unusual vigour and interest
in geometric form
(see cat no 43) compared
to other pictorialists.
By
1932-33, Dupain had begun to respond to the modern European
photography and came increasingly to feel that the pictorialists
had failed to come to terms with contemporary life. Dupain
began to independently photograph industrial forms such as
wheat silos
and Pyrmont docks in a way totally alien to the pictorialists'
beautification of subject by atmosphere. An account of Dupain's
work was published in Light Vision magazine No.5 May
1978 by the author.
J.
B. EATON 1881-1967
F.R.P.S. 1931
John
Bertram Eaton was born in England and came with his family
to Melbourne in 1889.
Eaton,
with his father, ran a picture framing business with small
gallery for many years in Toorak. Eaton appears to have
taken up photography
around 1919, when he began exhibiting in local exhibitions,
and from 1923, overseas salons such as the annual exhibitions
of the Royal Photographic
Society and the London Salon.
In
1921, Eaton joined the Victorian Pictorial Workers Society
- a counterpart to the
Sydney Camera Circle similarly
dedicated
to the progress of pictorialism. His progress in salons
was rapid and by 1925, he mounted a one man show of his
work
at Harringtor~s
in Melbourne. He was an enthusiastic supporter of local
societies, being a foundation member of the Melbourne
Camera Club, as
well as a member of the Victorian Salon and the Australian
Salons
of 1924 and 1926.
In
reviewing Eaton's one-man show in the A.P.R. June 1925, Harold
Cazneaux expressed some reservations
about
the repetitiveness
of Eaton's subject matter and style, which mostly featured
soft-focus
landscapes in simplified shapes and broad tonal arrangements.
Eaton was possibly inspired by the landscape work of
Frederick Evans of England but failed to retain the
delicate luminosity
or fine balance of line and shape of his model. Eaton
was undeterred by such criticisms and continued to
be a prolific
exhibitor until
the late 1940's.
In
later years, the soft-focus of his early work was replaced
by an interest in a graphic effect
achieved
by printing
through a piece of sandblasted glass on to high contrast
paper. Eaton's
work shows some parallels to the paintings of Elioth
Gruner in his interest in overlapping planes.
A
large collection of late prints were donated by Eaton to the
National
Library of Australia in the
1960's
and reproductions
of his work can be found in Bank Notes, the Commonwealth
Bank
staff magazine in the 1930's, as well as the annuals
of The Home magazine.
STANLEY
W. EUTROPE 1891. [deceased
1983]
Stanley
William Eutrope
was
born in Melbourne and became interested in
photography around 1914 when the very impressionistic 'fuzzygraph'
style of
pictorialism was at its height. He would probably
have seen John Kauffmann
and J. Temple Stephen's work at local exhibitions.
Eutrope began exhibiting around 1917 and in
that
year was invited
to become
a member of The Victorian Pictorial Workers
Society, a counterpart to the Sydney Camera Circle. He
took up bromoil
process after
seeing J. Temple Stephens' landscape and Ti-tree
studies.
In
1920, Eutrope moved to Sydney in connection with his
business firm to set up a gramophone and record branch. During
the Depression the business failed and pending an improved
economy, Eutrope took a position with Harrington's as manager
of their Brisbane branch. He returned to Sydney in 1967 after
his wife's death and lives in Sydney with his daughter. [deceased
1983]
Eutrope's
specialty was very fine bromoil work, usually landscape studies
which show a feel for decorative and graphic effects.
Sydney Ure Smith was so impressed with one of Eutrope's landscapes;
'An Australian Valley' that he was encouraged to include
it as one of the first photographs in Art and Australia in
September
1926 as part of a feature on 'the new outlook' on Australian
landscape.
ARTHUR
FORD 1889-1965
Arthur William Christopher Ford was born in Sydney
and was apprenticed as a clerk in the Government Printing
Office in 1902. At his own request, Ford transferred to process
engraving work (which included instruction in photography). He
remained with
the Department until retirement in 1953, serving for many years
as overseer of the Photographic Branch.
From around 1912 Ford began
exhibiting in local and overseas salons and was invited to join
the Sydney Camera Circle in 1917 soon after
its foundation. He would also have belonged to the Photographic
Society of N.S.W.
Ford's specialty was marine and skiing subjects,
usually taken on a Graflex camera. No large body of his work
has survived though
his
pictures were frequently reproduced in Bank Notes, the Commonwealth
Bank staff magazine in the 1930's. Ford did a series of pictures
of the Sydney Harbour Bridge under construction but no original
prints or reproductions have been located.
RUTH
HOLLICK 1883 - 1977
Ruth Hollick
was born near Melbourne and studied art at the National Gallery
Art School in Melbourne from 1902-06, where she formed life-long
friendships
with painter Dora Wilson and through her photographer Pegg Clarke.
Hollick first practised photography around 1908-9 as a freelancer
touring the country taking mostly portraits. She worked from
the family home in Moonee Ponds and was accompanied by Dorothy
Izard,
who printed the orders.
In
1918, Hollick. and Izard took over Minna Moore's old studio in
Collins Street, Melbourne, and were
sufficiently successful to take further space for the studio
and reception area in an adjoining building. In the early 1930's,
Hollick closed the city studio and once again operated from Moonee
Ponds,
mostly doing the child studies
for
which she was well known. Hollick and Izard travelled overseas
for the
first time in 1950 and retired to live in Heidelberg on their
return.
Ruth Hollick was best known for her studies of children,
for which she had a real interest and liked to use natural light
where possible
and to retain an air of spontaneity.
From 1920, Hollick also
exhibited her work in pictorial salons and was a regular exhibitor
in the London Salon and Amateur
Photographer annual shows. In 1928, a one woman show of
her work was held
at the
Collins St. studio. Hollick's work covering child and society
protraits, fashion and architectural illustrations was
frequently used in The Home between 1920-28, as a Melbourne counterpart to
Cazneaux's assignments.
HAROLD JONES d. 1970
Harold
Jones was a member of the Photographic Society of N.S.W. and
of the
Sydney Camera Circle from
1928. Jones worked for Howard
Smith & Co.,
shipping agents in Sydney.
F.
A. JOYNER active 1890's-1940's?
Frederick
Allan Joyner was a wellknown exhibitor and member of the South
Australian
Photographic
Society at the turn of the century. He worked in genre studies
in a rather old-fashioned style deriving from Victorian painting.
Joyner
was a solicitor by profession.
JOHN
KAUFFMANN 1864-1942
John
Kauffmann was born in Angaston, South Australia in 1864, the
son of a storekeeper,
later proprietor,
of an importing firm in
Adelaide from the 1870's, 'A. Kauffmann & Son'. John's
elder brother, Louis, was taken into the business, whilst he
was apprenticed
as a clerk in an architect's
office.
In
1887, Kauffmann travelled to England to gain further experience
but abandoned this work to become one of the many converts
to pictorial photography
which was being articulated by British photographers, such
as George Davison, around 1890. Kauffmann studied photographic
chemistry
and the new reproduction
processes in England and Europe then returned to Adelaide in
1897. Though he does not appear to have exhibited at the Photographic
Salons of the avant garde pictorialists of the Linked Ring, Kauffmann
was referred to
as a 'medallist' on
his return. Kauffmann's
work received quick recognition by the Press on his return
and he gained medals at The South Australian Photographic Society
annual
salons (he
joined in late
1897) and the main societies in New South Wales and Victoria.
By
1902, his standing was such that he was invited to judge his
own society's first international salons in 1902-03, at
which
impressionist
pictorial
style was seen in the gum bichromates of David Blount (see
introduction). Adelaide
art circles tastes in the 1890's were swinging to impressionist
theories and Kauffmann's landscapes were admired for their
delicate mist effects.
Harold
Cazneaux (q.v.) who was directly inspired to take up photography
as an art by seeing these
exhibitions, always referred to Kauffmann as the pioneer
pictorialist of Australia.
In
1909, Kauffmann moved to Melbourne and is listed in directories
at 163 Collins St. as a photographer
by 1914. Though never
an office-bearer, Kauffman
was
given a one-man show by the Amateur Photographic Association
of Victoria in 1910 and
1914, the latter of which was also shown in Sydney.
In
1919, a monograph on his work The Art of John Kauffmann was
published with 20 half-tone
illustrations, probably the first monograph on an Australian
photographer.
Kauffmann's
activities as a professional were largely illustrations
for
magazines such as The Home or
books, one on Melbourne in 1931 for Sydney Ure Smith,
one on the Sunraysia District c.1920. He does not appear to
have done
any portraiture
and
took few
pupils,
his income came from print sales for which he charged
up to 10 guineas.
Kauffmann
was an aloof personality and did not
participate
in lecturing
at societies
or reviewing, as did his friend, Harold Cazneaux.
His style probably evolved from
atmospheric naturalism through the more exaggerated
soft-focus of the 1905-15 years and thereafter retained a luminous
softness and
dark
tonality.
The
vogue for Australian sunshine around 1920 make
his work outdated and Kauffmann expressed some bitterness
to Cazneaux as to the lack
of recognition
of his
pioneering work. In the thirties, Kauffmann turned
to close-up floral studies (due probably
to poor eyesight) which are often striking and
bold in composition and modern despite the soft diffusion of
detail.
In
urban studies, Kauffmann also showed a receptivity to treating
everyday or industrial subjects pictorially, quite unlike other
pictorialists (see cat no 56). Some views showed telegraph
poles,
suggesting an influence of Eustace Calland, J. B. Wellington,
and Alvin Langdon Coburn's pioneer use of industrial forms
in the early 1900's.
Unfortunately,
the only large collection of Kauffmann's work is in a private
collection and not available
for study.
[footnote:
the National Gallery of Australia and the Art Gallery of South
Australia now have extensive holdings of Kauffmann's work]
PETER LAWRENCE
1882-1970
A.R.P.S. 1928
Peter
Lawrence was born in England and came to Australia in 1922
taking up photography under Harold Cazneaux
shortly after his arrival. By 1925, Lawrence had been invited
to join the Sydney Camera Circle. He returned to England with
his
wife and daughter in 1926-27 and met with photographic personalities
such as F. J. Mortimer, editor of The Amateur Photographer and F. C. Tilney, a photographic critic, who reviewed 'Circle'
members'
pictures at the annual salons in London from 1926-32.
Lawrence
returned to Australia in 1928 and settled in Bowral, N.S.W.
Away from fellow photographers, Lawrence's own work declined.
He returned
to England in 1947, after the breakdown of his marriage.
Despite the shortness of his time in photography, Lawrence
was successful
in salons and cat no 64 was used as a frontispiece for Cameragraphs 1926, the catalogue of the Australian Salon. Lawrence's
daughter
donated a collection of his photographs to the National
Library of Australia in 1977.
SIR
LIONEL LINDSAY 1874-1961
Lionel
Lindsay was born in Victoria, one of the talented Lindsay
family of artists
and writers. Lindsay, whose chief medium was black
and white graphic arts, was also a prominent art critic and
theorist.
His avid interest
in the techniques of printing processes probably first
attracted
him to photography around 1900.
Lindsay
had a studio from 1905-08 and was most active around 1911 when
he won
a medal
for his oil
pigment prints at the annual exhibition of the Photographic
Society of N.S.W., of which he had been a member since
1908. In the same
year, Lindsay wrote his only article on photography,
'Picture Making by the Camera, Is Photography Art?' for The Lone Hand magazine of
July, 1911, in which he expressed a view that as
photography could be beautiful but not true in the way painting
could,
it was not an art. After 1911, Lindsay ceased to exhibit
but continued his
earlier
experimentation
with gum bichromate and bromoil into work with the
lumiere colour process around 1911-15, and later movie film
in the 1920's.
In
1927, during a visit to England, Lindsay met James Craig Annan,
who had introduced photogravure to England
and received
a set
of Annan's gravures (now in the National Library, along
with Lindsay's
collection of photographic books and remaining photographs.
Unfortunately examples of his colour bromoils have
not been located.)
MONTE
LUKE 1885-1962
F.R.P.S. 1928
Charles
Montague Luke was born in Victoria,
the son of a well known press photographer, E.
T. Luke. Monte was first employed as a messenger for Baker & Rouse,
photographic suppliers but, from 1907, worked as
an actor until appointed
as official still and movie cameraman for the theatrical
firm, J.
C. Williamson's.
Around 1919, Luke went into partnership with the
Falk studio in the Strand before setting up his own studio
in the same building
in L.
W. Appleby's old studio. Luke's studio specialized
in weddings and social portraits but also gained
a reputation
for smart advertising
work.
Luke
joined the Sydney Camera Circle in 1921 and meetings were henceforth
held in his studio until
at least the
late thirties.
He was a prolific
exhibitor, known for dramatic portrait studies
but delicate landscapes. A selection of 37 of
Luke's dramatic landscapes
was published
in the 1930's entitled Under Sunny Skies (n.d.)
of
which only one
copy is known in the National Library of Australia,
which also holds a
collection of Luke's photographs. However, only
a small number of his many exhibition prints
have survived.
The
Monte Luke studio moved
to Castlereagh Street in the 1940's and still
operates.
HENRI
MALLARD 1884-1967
Henri
Marie Joseph Mallard was the Australian born son
of French parents, who had settled in Balmain
in
the
1880's. Mallard retained a French accent
due
to his early education
at home. In
1900, Mallard offered himself to Harrington's
photographic suppliers as
a lure to the French Consular trade which
was going to a rival firm, Baker & Rouse, with Frenchman "Mons" Perier
on staff. Mallard remained with Harrington's
(later Kodak Pty. Ltd.) until his retirement in 1952.
Mallard, who had been attracted to photography by the displays
of equipment
and pictures
in Harringtor's
window, soon learnt the process and was
exhibiting in local salons by 1904.
In
1913, Mallard married and took up a position in the Melbourne
branch where
he encouraged
pictorial photography
by showing
a selection of John Kauffmanres 1914
one-man show at the firm's showrooms. Mallard
returned to Sydney in 1916 and by 1917
had joined the Sydney Camera Circle and
was regularly
assisting
the
Photographic
Society of N.S.W.
with many technical lecture demonstrations.
Mallard
was a genial personality, who used his expertise and central
position
in Harrington's
to encourage
several generations
of amateurs
and professionals in pursuing the art
or craft of photography. The most notable
instance was
his demonstration
of
a movie camera to
his friend, the young Frank Hurley,
who was going
to the Antarctic in place of Mallard,
who
had family commitments.
Mallard's
own role in Australian cinema is
yet to be investigated.
He
is best known for the film of the building of the
Sydney Harbour Bridge, which he did on his own
initiative. Despite
a strong
interest
in film and
documentary work, Mallard was faithful
to the canons of the pictorial
style and was
making
delicate
bromoils at
the same
time as editing
the Bridge film. Exhibition prints
from any Bridge negatives would most likely
have been
treated
like cat no 75 showing
the Bridge tensioning
cables.
The
National Library of Australia holds a good collection of Mallard's
work,
including tapes
of his reminiscences.
A biography
was published
in Photo Digest magazine August
1960 and his Bridge negatives,
now in
the collection
of
the Australian
Centre for Photography,
were
reprinted and published by Sun
Books 1978.
MRS.
A. G. MILSON (FLORENCE
MILSON) active
1919-24
Florence
Milson was the
wife of Alfred G.
Milson of Milson's Pt., Sydney,
and
was highly
regarded
by Harold Cazneaux from whom
she received lessons in 1919. Presumably,
it was
Cazneaux who nominated Mrs.
Milson in 1920 as the first (and only)
lady member
of
the Sydney
Camera
Circle.
By 1921, the
'Circle' minute
book records that Mrs. Milson
was 'deemed
to have resigned for personal
reasons', though she continued
exhibiting
locally and in overseas
salons until around 1924.
Mrs.
Milson made a visit to England around 1923 and was encouraged
by F. J. Mortimer, the editor of The Amateur Photographer,
with whose help she organised an exhibition of overseas pictorialists'
work for showing in Sydney and Melbourne in 1924.
Cazneaux
felt that Mrs. Milson's exhibition was the best foreign
work seen in Australia (though few of the photographers listed
in the catalogue have had lasting reputations) and described
her
own work as 'brilliant'. Unfortunately, only a few of Mrs.
Milson's photographs are known to have survived and these
were printed by Cazneaux and may not reflect Mrs. Milson's
own style.
Mrs.
Milson evidently gave up photography shortly after sending
the pictorial exhibition to Australia.
W.
H. MOFFITT 1888-1948
William
Heath Moffitt was born in Sydney and trained as a solicitor,
later becoming a partner in the
firm McDonell & Moffitt. He took up photography around
1920 and joined the Sydney Camera Circle in 1927.
In
the 1930's Moffitt
developed a distinctive, very graphic style of bromoiling
probably using a series of paper negatives to reduce the
image to a
flat
pattern of shape and line. In August, 1947 Moffitt wrote
his only article on photography, 'The Status of Pictorial
Photography', for the A.P.R., in which he defended the
pictorialists' right
to use such processes as bromoil to achieve an artistic
effect.
The article was much admired by Cazneaux as a defence
against post war criticisms of the 'fakery' of pictorialists'
images.
MAY
AND MINA MOORE
MAY c.1880-1930
MINA 1883-1957
May
and Mina Moore were New Zealand born sisters who established
a
photographic studio in Wellington in 1908. May, who had
attended Elam Art
School in Auckland instigated the studio, and Minn,
a teacher,
joined her and later ran the studio after May had moved
to Sydney around 1913. May Moore had been encouraged to move
by
the success
of the Moore studio portraits of theatre personalities
in New Zealand, and continued this specialty from a new studio
in
the Bulletin building in Sydney.
Mina
Moore followed her sister
to Sydney about 1913 but after a brief period of partnership
when their work was signed 'May and Mina Moore', moved
to Melbourne
and set up a studio in the Auditorium building, Collins
St. In 1916 Mina Moore married William
Tainish, a poet and businessman and gave up her studio in 1918
to have a family.
May
also married not long after her arrival in Sydney but continued
to operate the studio until the late 1920's with the assistance of
her husband, a Sydney dentist Harry Wilkes.
Like
Jack Cato, who also specialised in theatrical and social portraits,
May
and Mina Moore did not exhibit in
the pictorial salons. Their work
was published
in magazines and was distinctive for their simple but dramatic treatment
of portraiture. In particular the Moore studio was recognizable by
the use of a device known
as 'Rembrandt' lighting, where a pencil of light fell on one side of
the face with the rest in shadow as in cat no 84. Such
devices had been introduced
by
the pictorialists and especially the Photo Secessionists at the turn
of the century, and effectively ended the era of the
static 19th century studio
portrait.
GEORGE
J. MORRIS 1884-1959
George
James Morris was born in Sydney and studied modelling and engraving
at Sydney Technical College and may have later
taught there around
1905. Morris possibly started photography as early as 1901, but more
likely around 1920-21 when he visited Germany, England
and America studying engraving
and photoreproduction
processes. At the time Morris visited the Kodak works in New York
State.
He
began exhibiting around 1925 as a member of the Sydney Camera
Circle
and the Photographic
Society of N.S.W. Around this time, after his return, Morris established
a commercial studio in Sydney specializing in advertising and industrial
assignments.
In
1927, Morris became a partner in Ramsay Photo Works, responsible
for the copying and enlarging work. In connection
with this business,
Morris
again travelled
to Europe and America in 1936 carrying his Leica camera (an early
35 mm developed in 1925). Morris later exhibited his overseas pictures
but in
the form of the
largest bromoil transfers ever seen (some 3' x 2' in size one remains
in Morris' widow's collection) which he had produced using a mangle.
Morris
served as secretary of the Sydney Camera Circle for many years
but resigned in 1936
after a
conflict over the election of R. V. Simpson q.v. One of his last
activities
was joining
the Contemporary Camera Group in 1938 after which, at the onset
of war, Morris went to work for the Department of the Army.
Morris worked on anti-aircraft guns and developed several
projects, including an automatic enlarger and a rangefinding
device.
As a result of
an accident during this work
Morris suffered a long illness before his death.
He
was a close friend of Cecil Bostock with whom he shared interest
in fine
craftwork and
boating, and was responsible
for salvaging some works from the auction of studio effects
after Bostock's death. Morris' work was unusual in that his
pictures
of places have
related images which
perhaps show an influence of the photo-journalistic 'essay'which
had developed from the 1920's with the advent of 35 mm cameras.
WILLIAM
T. OWEN 1898-1979
F.R.P.S. 1927
William
Thomas Owen was born in New Zealand in 1898 and moved with
his family
to England
in 1906
and began
photography in 1908 when his father, Charles, a keen
amateur, tired of the hobby. After service in the British Navy
during
WWI, Owen
went to
the Polytechnic Art
School 1919-21 studying graphic art illustration and
later to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
In
1924 Owen began exhibiting in the Amateur Photographer competitions
and the
London and Royal Salons. He became
a member of The
Amateur Postal Camera
Club,
experimented with processes and did some professional
work.
In
1927, Owen left England due to the Depression and settled
in
Melbourne working for
Spencer
Shier for a year before joining a firm - Colour Photographs
- later Queen City Printers
- for whom he developed a method of applying the
Jos-Pe colour process
to lithography. The firm became P. C. Grosser Lithographic
Printers, for whom Owen worked until
retirement in 1969.
As
an amateur Owen found the light very different in Australia
and, in particular, lacked
the atmosphere
he was
used to. His
Australian pictures
made here followed the style of J. B. Eaton (q.v.)
but
did not retain the finish of his English subjects.
Owen
was an active
member of
the Melbourne
Camera
Circle and Melbourne Camera Club and a judge
for The Victorian Salon after Dr. Julian
Smith's death in 1948. Owen worked in carbon,
carbro and lantern slides. The National Gallery of Victoria
holds
a good collection
of Owen's
work.
F.
VAUDRY ROBINSON 1885-1961
Frederick
Vaudry Robinson was
the leading pictorialist in
Tasmania according to Jack Cato's Story
of the Camera in Australia. Robinson was a close friend
of Cato's before the latter's departure for London
in 1909. They possibly met in Percy Whitelaw's studio
where both worked for a time.
Robinson
was first apprenticed to Stephen Spurling II's studio in Launceston
and later
worked for ten years for Whitelaw. Cato's autobiography I Can Take It refers to their early experiments with
new pictorial processes and traditional toning methods
to achieve coloured images. Robinson was also a painter
and may have studied under Lucien Dechaineux as Cato
had done. He retained his early interest in colour
and was one of the few expert colour bromoilists.
A
one man show of Robinson's monochrome and colour bromoils was
shown at Kodak Pty. Ltd's showrooms in Sydney
in
August 1928, which was reviewed by Cazneaux in
the A.P.R. August issue. Some foreign views were included
indicating Robinson had travelled. It was probably
around 1928 that Robinson attempted to set up a
studio in Melbourne, against the advice of Cato who felt
he was more bohemian than businesslike. Robinson had wanted
to go into partnership with Cato. The Melbourne
studio failed and Robinson returned to set up a studio in
Launceston.
He
was not a regular exhibitor and unfortunately few examples
of his photographs have survived.
The Australia Beautiful, The Home Annual for
1928 illustrated several of his bromoils on canvas
textured paper
which
were no doubt from his one man show.
L.
HEY SHARP 1885-1965
Lewis
Hey Sharp was born in Sydney, the son of Canon William Sharp,
and graduated from Sydney University
with a Bachelor's degree in science and engineering. Sharp
lectured in electrical engineering at Adelaide School of Mines
and Industries
in 1908 and Adelaide University 1909 and various other positions
until 1919 when he went to Sydney University to lecture in
electrical engineering. Sharp was acting professor from 1927-41
and retired
in 1949. He was also interested in economics and wrote a
number of books on the subject.
Sharp
is listed as Hon. Secretary of the Photographic Society of N.S.W.
in 1915 and occasional
lecturer on the bromoil
process. He was nominated for membership
of the Sydney Camera Circle in the twenties but was not accepted, though
his work seems to have been of an equivalent standard.
Sharp rarely exhibited in the salons (though some historical
subjects appeared in The Home magazine) and ceased pictorial
work around 1930.
R.
V. SIMPSON d.1967
Richard
Simpson lived in Sydney and was nominated for membership of the Sydney
Camera Circle in 1935. His acceptance caused Cecil
Bostock and George Morris to
resign. Simpson's work appears to have been competent and the problem
may have been one
of personalities. Simpson lived in Orange for many years before his
death. Cat no 102 was bequeathed to the Sydney Camera Circle
collection in Simpson's will.
ARTHUR
SMITH d. 1945
Arthur
Smith was born in England and had
already had
work published in The Photograms of the Year in 1910 and articles
in The Amateur Photographer in 1908 before coming to New South Wales around 1917.
Smith
joined the Photographic Society of N.S.W. and was a regular writer
on
picture making.
In the A.P.R.
in the early 1930's Smith wrote a series of articles entitled
'Letters From An Uncle', one of which in March 1930 'Photography
in the
City' is a classic insight into the pictorialists' compositional
ideals with sunshine balanced against shadow, lights against
darks and the 'massing' which was an almost sacred goal. For
such masses to come through detail had to be suppressed and
thus misty mornings were a good time to photograph.
Smith
worked in a delicate manner and never lost his love of English
atmosphere.
He was reputed to have lit fires in fields
to obtain
the effect desired. Smith never lost his Lancashire accent
and was well remembered for his practical help in which he stressed
the need to have a 'dominatin 'ighlight' in the picture.
Smith
was invited to join the Sydney Camera Circle but felt it
weakened the membership of the Photographic Society.
DR.
JULIAN SMITH
1873-1947
F.R.P.S. 1930 Hon F.R.P.S. 1944
Julius
Augustus Romaine
Smith was
born in London and came to Melbourne at an early age.
Smith graduated in Medicine from Melbourne University and was
an
important surgeon.
Smith took up photography around 1925 and by 1927 was
exhibiting work in the annual London Salon. He must have been
in England
at the time as several portraits of English photographic
personalities date from this time (see cat no 105).
Smith
was a founder of the Victorian Salon and member of the Melbourne
Camera Club. He worked almost exclusively
in portraiture
as the
studio portrait suited his busy schedule which would
have made outdoor work difficult. The portraits were
usually character
studies often inspired by Dickens writings, or illustrations
of emotive
themes. Titles such as 'The Old Firebrand' (see cat
no 106) added this emotional meaning to the work.
To
obtain greater
richness
in the colour of his prints (usually very large),
Julian Smith
developed his own method of over exposure, forced
development in a hot bath using ferrycyanide to reduce the highlights
as required,
but which left depth in the dark tones. It was a
characteristic
invention, he developed various techniques and devices
for medical use as well.
After
his death a portfolio of reproductions on
loose sheets was published; Fifty Masterpieces
of Photography by Dr.
Julian Smith (1949), as a memorial. Smith
had been a prolific exhibitor and his work was
probably the most well
known
outside
Australia
of any pictorialist. The National Gallery of Victoria
and the National Library of Australia have collections
of Julian Smith's prints.
JAMES
STENING
1870-1953
James
Sydney Stening was born in Sydney and worked
as a jeweller for Fairfax
and Roberts' firm until retirement. Stening
was one of the founders of the Photographic Society
of New
South
Wales in
1894 and by
1898 was winning medals in various exhibitions
for his landscapes and
seascapes.
As
well as serving as an officer of the Photographic Society for
many years, Stening
was
active in the Ashfield
District Camera Club with friends Frank Hurley
and Norman Deck. Stening
was among the first to recognise Harold Cazneaux's
work and instigated his one-man show in 1909.
Stening also
became a founder member
of the Sydney Camera Circle in late 1916
and served as President
of the Photographic Society in 1917, which
may have caused him to be less active in 'The Circle'.
Stening
appears to have ceased to exhibit around 1920 and is not listed
as a member of 'The
Circle' in 1921,
though
he evidently
continued his interest in photography and
adopted the new Leica camera when it was developed
after 1925.
He was a
perfectionist in technique and preferred
the fine detail of tonal gradation
of
platinum printing papers (see cat no 107),
popular at the turn
of the century, to the bromide prints most
commonly used by Australian pictorialists.
Nevertheless,
Stening adopted
the
soft-focus style
of pictorialism after about 1910 and his
later work was similar to that of Norman Deck. (As
Deck acquired
Stening's
negatives
after his death and printed from them,
some confusion has arisen in the
attribution of unsigned prints, see cat
no's 41, 113, 115.)
The
Stening prints in the exhibition show a range
of pictorial
work
particularly valuable as an illustration
of the changes between the 1890's and 1920's within
pictorialism
as a whole. The
exhibition mounts have been made with
coloured papers
to show the taste
in mounting which up to 1900-1910, occupied
nearly
as much consideration as the making of
the prints and are
based
on Stening's original
mounts.
CLIVE
STUART TOMPKINS 1900 - (?)
AR.P.S. 1930
Clive
Stuart Tompkins was born in Victoria and after winning
a scholarship to study Photo Lithography in 1915 learnt
photography under
the course.
After
Naval service Tompkins joined Spencer
Shier's studio in Melbourne in 1919.
By
1923 Tompkins had established his own
studio in
Melbourne
by buying out
the Ainar
Studio in Auburn. Tompkins became
involved with various amateur and
professional
societies and
was a founder
of the Victorian
Salon of Photography in 1929 and
the Melbourne Camera Circle in
1933, the Professional Photographers Assocation
of Australia in 1944 as well as
an officer
for
many years of
the Professional Photographers
Association of Victoria (later
the Institute of Victorian Photographers)
which he
had joined in
1924. He was
a member of the Melbourne
Camera Club and editor of Professional
Photography in Australia from
1957. Tompkins started the observance
of Mother's Day in Australia, thus
cat no
116 is an appropriate
exhibit.
Tompkins
first work was published in Table Talk Annual in 1923 and
he did
work for Adam and Eve magazine.
In 1928 he
was part
of an exhibition group called
'6 Amateurs 6 Professionals' (with
R. Grimwade,
Dr Smith, J. B. Eaton and
W. Howieson, R. Hollick,
S. Shier, E. Adamson, A. Dickinson,
respectively).
A.
WILKINSON 1869-1940
Alfred
Wilkinson was a well known
pictorialist
in Adelaide from about 1910
until the early 1930's. He was a partner
in the
firm of Lodge and Wilkinson
Hairdressers and
an active member of the Adelaide
Camera
Club.
Cat
no 116 is
unusual in that
despite the typically Australian
character of the scene,
very few pictorialists
used such subjects particularly
taken indoors as Wilkinson's
picture has been done.