Category Archives: TMAG

Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery holdings

This gallery contains 14 photos.

This Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery notice about their photographic collections appeared in November 2006. It is now September 2010, and the promised website with viewable databases of their vast photographic holdings is still not up and running. The TMAG holds a sizable collection of rare works by Thomas J. Nevin. Continue reading

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The Supreme Court mugshots taken by T. J. Nevin from 1871 onwards

This gallery contains 10 photos.

Who were they? They were T.J. Nevin’s sitters for police records, mostly “Supreme Court men” photographed on committal for trial at the Supreme Court adjoining the Hobart Gaol when they were isolated in silence for a month after sentencing. If sentenced for a long term at the Supreme Court Launceston, they were photographed, bathed, shaved and dressed on being received in Hobart. These procedures, past and present, were reported at length by a visitor to the Hobart Gaol and Supreme Court in The Mercury, 8th July 1882 … Continue reading

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Two histories, one execution

This gallery contains 5 photos.

Job Smith was either photographed by Thomas Nevin when Campbell was one of sixty prisoners who had transferred to the Hobart Gaol and were assigned before July 1873 (see W.R. Giblin’s and the Inspector of Police reportof convicts tabled in the Parliament on July 17th, 1873), or just before William Campbell was returned to Port Arthur on May 8th, 1874 to complete his 8 year sentence, accompanied by Thomas Nevin in his role as police agent and photographer. Both were listed as passengers on the schooner Harriet’s way bill. Continue reading

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The QVMAG convict photos exhibition 1977

This gallery contains 7 photos.

Most of these prisoner ID photographs were acquired by the QVMAG in 1927, as part of photographer John Watt Beattie’s (1859-1930) collection from his estate and convictaria museum in Hobart. Beattie’s sources in turn were the police gazettes and prisoner registers held at the Town Hall Municipal Police Office, where Nevin worked full-time 1876-1880, and from the Sheriff’s Office and Supreme Court at the Hobart Gaol where his brother Constable John Nevin was his assistant. Beattie had ready access as official government photographer ca. 1900s to these documents. Continue reading

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Three significant prisoner cartes by T.J. Nevin

This gallery contains 14 photos.

More than 3000 Tasmanian prisoner identification photographs (mugshots) were taken by the brothers Thomas and (Constable) John (Jack) Nevin between 1872 and 1884. T. J. Nevin, 9 convicts photographs Mitchell Library NSW (PXB 274) Photo KLW NFC 2009 Arr Most … Continue reading

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Two histories, one execution

This gallery contains 22 photos.

Emanuel Blore and Job Smith aka William Campbell From the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection Reproduced from page 36 of Tasmanian Photographers 1840-1940: A Directory (TMAG 1995) Photo © KLW NFC 2008 ARR Click on image for large view … Continue reading

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From glass negative to printed carte

This gallery contains 19 photos.

From glass negative to printed carte: Thomas Nevin’s capture of convict Tuck, but was it BEWLEY TUCK or JOHN TUCK? One man, two names, one image. Click on images In addition to the photograph of Bewley Tuck, the Archives Office … Continue reading

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More on the versos of some convict cartes …

This gallery contains 3 photos.

Thomas J. Nevin’s portrait of Port Arthur convict John Fitzpatrick 1874National Library of Australianla.pic-an24612603Location: PIC P1029/11 LOC Album 935Photographer: Nevin, Thomas J., 1842-ca. 1922. John Fitzpatrick, per Ld. [i.e. Lord] Lyndock 2, taken at Port Arthur, 1874 [picture] 1 photograph … Continue reading

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Heads of the People exhibition NPG Canberra 2000

This gallery contains 3 photos.

These three frames of 40 photographs in total were included in the exhibition Heads of the People, held at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, June to October, 2000, with a doubly erroneous attribution. Beattie’s name appears as the source, giving the impression that these are indeed HIS photographs, and that they were re-created by him “after” an earlier source, Adolarious Humphrey Boyd, the accountant and Commandant at the Port Arthur site from 1871-1873. Continue reading

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Bewley Tuck can speak for himself

This gallery contains 3 photos.

See also these articles: From glass negative to printed carte Aliases, Copies, and Misattribution Caption: Bewley Tuck, convict per Lotus. Photographed at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin. Archives Office of Tasmania (webshot). Read this article by Carolyn Strange in which … Continue reading

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Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery databases

This gallery contains 4 photos.

This Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery notice about their photographic collections appeared in November 2006. It is now September 2010, and the promised website with viewable databases of their vast photographic holdings is still not up and running. The TMAG holds a sizable collection of rare works by Thomas J. Nevin. Continue reading

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Mirror with a Memory Exhibition 2000 at the National Portrait Gallery

This gallery contains 1 photo.

A new National Portrait Gallery of Australia is under construction in Canberra. No doubt the new spaces will display photographic portraits of convicts transported to Australia, as part of the country’s rich history of migration. How will the National Portrait … Continue reading

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Two histories, two inscriptions

This gallery contains 10 photos.

Emanuel Blore and Job Smith aka William Campbell From the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection Reproduced from page 36 of Tasmanian Photographers 1840-1940: A Directory (TMAG 1995) Photo © KLW NFC 2008 ARR Click on image for large view … Continue reading

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Anne-Marie Willis & Richard Neville on the Boyd misattribution

This gallery contains 3 photos.

Several photohistorians have questioned – and dismissed – the suggestion by Chris Long in the TMAG publication Tasmanian Photographers 1840-1940: A Directory (1995:36) that the Port Arthur Commandant A.H. Boyd was the photographer of the Port Arthur convicts in 1874. These include Joan Kerr and Geoff Stilwell, John McPhee, and Richard Neville among the more authoritative commentators. Continue reading

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Alfred Bock & Thomas Nevin at Port Arthur 1860s

This gallery contains 5 photos.

The Port Arthur photographers … Alfred Bock 1860s © TP for Private Collections 2010 ARR In 1863, Thomas J. Nevin applied for an apprenticeship with Alfred Bock at his studio, The City Photographic Establishment, 140 Elizabeth-street, Hobart Town. Alfred Bock’s … Continue reading

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Execution of Sutherland and Ogden

This gallery contains 12 photos.

The colouring of these cartes served two purposes: to render a more accurate image reflective of reality, i.e. blue for blue eyes, blue for the prison issue scarf, especially when the man was wanted on warrant; and to profit from the sale of the hanged man’s image to the press and the public. These were called “ornaments of colour”, a term used in reference to Nevin’s tinting of prisoner photographs in the Mercury newspaper account of Nevin’s incident with the “ghost” (December 4, 1880).

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How misattribution can persist

This gallery contains 6 photos.

Ennis (2000) and Crombie (2004) publications … Click on image for large readable version Isobel Crombie’s Body Culture: Max Dupain, Photography and Australian Culture, 1919-1939, published by the National Gallery of Victoria (2004) includes this Thomas J. Nevin photograph of … Continue reading

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