JOHN
B. EATON
1881
- 1966
John Bertram
Eaton was born in England and came with his family to Melbourne in
1889. Eaton went into partnership with
his father in a
picture framing business in Toorak. He appears to have taken up photography
around 1919, and was soon exhibiting in local and overseas salons.
He was invited to join the Victorian Pictorial Workers Society, a
counterpart to the Sydney Camera Circle, and by 1925 had mounted
a one-man show
at Harrington’s photographic supply company showrooms in Melbourne.
Eaton
was an active member of the Melbourne Camera Club of which he was
also a founder, and the Australian Salons of 1924 and 1926 and
the Victorian Salon from its inception in 1929.
Eaton
had a distinctive style inspired by the serene landscapes with their
cool light of British
pictorialist F. H. Evans. His own style
featured soft focus landscapes with similar simplified shapes, tonal
harmony and minimum detail.
In later
years Eaton developed a technique of printing through a piece of
sand blasted glass onto high contrast
paper, which gave his prints a very graphic effect despite a subdued
range of tones.
above
text
based on Gaël Newton's Silver & Grey
Angus and Roberston, Australia 1980
cattle tracks 1939