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Cecil W. Bostock & Australian Pictorial Photography
Text
from: Australian Pictorial
Photogrpahy, Gaël Newton,
1979
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
New South Wales 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's records show that
their meetings were held in Bostock's studios 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 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'.
Bostock
supported many efforts to establish photography as an art yet his own
concepts
appear to be not limited to pictorialism's
aesthetic. Cataloque 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).
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