National Gallery of Victoria – Tasmanian photographer

Cdv's at NVG Exhibition WHO ARE YOU 2022

T. Nevin cdv at the “Who Are You” exhibition, NGV and NPG 2022

July 30, 2022

Photographic works extant in public collections taken by Hobart professional photographer Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923) in Tasmania during the 1860s and 1870s are regularly displayed at exhibitions held by Australian national galleries and museums. In many cases, a publication in book form accompanies the exhibition. This year’s exhibition titled WHO ARE YOU includes a hand-tinted carte-de-visite of a woman yet to be identified, taken by Thomas J. Nevin ca. 1865-67. The exhibition of 230 works – 79 from the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, and 160 from the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne – represent all visual media of photography, painting, sculpture, works on papers and video. … More T. Nevin cdv at the “Who Are You” exhibition, NGV and NPG 2022

Young man at Nevin & Smith's studio, Hobart 1868

NEVIN & SMITH, 1868: the client with white fingernails

October 21, 2021

Robert Smith was known to Mrs Esther Mather. She was not happy about the colouring he had applied to a portrait of her brother when he visited the studio she called “Smith’s” in Hobart. She said so in a letter to her step-son, dated 1865. Nothing was known about this partner of Thomas J. Nevin called Robert Smith until recently when portraits and stereoscopes bearing the business name NEVIN & SMITH came to light. Robert Smith may have been an independent photographer prior to forming a partnership with Thomas J. Nevin at Alfred Bock’s former studio. The partnership lasted less than a year and was promptly dissolved in February 1868 following the Royal visit to Hobart, Tasmania of Alfred Ernest Albert, Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria, in late 1867 on his first command, H.M.S. Galatea. Thomas J. Nevin continued the photographic business in his own name at Alfred Bock’s former studio, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town, while Robert Smith departed for Goulburn NSW where he set up a photographic studio before taking to farming and politics. … More NEVIN & SMITH, 1868: the client with white fingernails

Convict photographs by T. J. Nevin at the Art Gallery NSW Centenary Exhibition 1976

June 9, 2017

Photographs of Tasmanian “convicts” – i.e. prisoner mugshots – taken by T. J. Nevin in the 1870s were exhibited at the Centenary of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne in 1976. The Exhibition Catalogue was written by Daniel Thomas Senior Curator and Curator of Australian Art, Art Gallery of NSW. The Tasmanian contributor was antiquarian Geoffrey Stilwell, a Trustee of the Centenary Celebrations of the Art Gallery of NSW and Special Collections curator of the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania. … More Convict photographs by T. J. Nevin at the Art Gallery NSW Centenary Exhibition 1976

The desecration of Minnie Carr’s grave 1898

May 20, 2016

By the time of his cousin Minnie Carr’s death in September 1898, Sonny Nevin, eldest son of photographer Thomas J. Nevin was the closest she had to an older brother. The death notice stated that her mother’s residence was at 76 Patrick Street, Hobart but in fact that was the address of her grandfather’s widow, Martha Nevin, formerly Salter, nee Genge, who became her step-parents when Minnie’s mother Mary Ann Carr died soon after giving birth in Victoria. Family members had left ribbons and cards at her graveside but within days, these tokens were stolen. Sonny Nevin inserted an angry notice in the Mercury, offering a reward to anyone who knew about the thief responsible for the desecration of his cousin’s grave. … More The desecration of Minnie Carr’s grave 1898

Woman with pink ribbons by Thomas Nevin 1870s

May 20, 2016

This carte-de-visite of an unidentified older woman, one of many older women who favoured Thomas Nevin’s services for this type of full-length studio portrait, is unusual in that the pink tint applied to her bonnet ribbons is the same shade of pink applied to the ribbons worn by Pangernowidedic in a reprint, ca. 1875 of four Tasmanian Aborigines who were photographed originally in 1864 as a series taken at Government House. … More Woman with pink ribbons by Thomas Nevin 1870s