Tag: Tasmanian photographers

One of the last portraits by Alfred Bock in Hobart 1865

April 19, 2013

This photograph of a teenage girl with bare shoulders and ringlets may be one of the very last taken by Alfred Bock in Hobart Tasmania before his departure in 1865. The design of the studio stamp on the verso was altered only minimally by his younger partner Thomas J. Nevin who bought the lease of the studio, shop, the glass house and darkroom, the stock of negatives, camera equipment, backdrops and furniture etc at auction on August 2nd, 1865. Thomas J. Nevin continued to use the studio stamp’s design for his commercial studio portraiture for another decade, although he used at least six other designs for various formats and clients, including the Royal Arms insignia of the colonial warrant for his contracts and commission with the Colonial government. … More One of the last portraits by Alfred Bock in Hobart 1865

Elwick racecourse, Hobart, Tasmania

Apprentices: The Good, The Bad and The Careless

September 18, 2009

Among photographers’ apprentices in 1870s Hobart was the notable Joshua Anson. He stole cameras, photographic equipment, mounts, chemicals and albums from his employer Henry Hall Baily over five years between 1872 and 1877. He ordered the importation of glass negatives and mounts from London and Paris on H. H. Baily’s account and without Baily’s consent. He also reprinted albums by Samuel Clifford as his own work. The value placed on the goods far exceeded the court valuation of £180. Chief Justice Francis Smith informed the jury that theft on this scale warranted a sentence of 14 years. The Law Digest (1897) recorded the event with the normative 14 year sentence, and the refusal of bail. Joshua Anson was sentenced to just two years because he was young, 22 years old at the time of the trial in June 1877, and pleaded to be kept apart from the others prisoners on incarceration because he felt he was above them. He was photographed on incarceration at the Hobart Gaol in 1877 by the Nevin brothers… … More Apprentices: The Good, The Bad and The Careless

The Nevin group portrait and wedding photographs 1871

January 6, 2009

Elizabeth Rachel Nevin nee Day, wife of Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923), was born in London on 26 March 1847, and christened at St Mary’s, Rotherhithe, London, UK on 28th April 1847, the eldest daughter of  Captain James Day and Rachael Pocock who were married at St David’s Church Hobart on January 6th, 1841. Her younger … More The Nevin group portrait and wedding photographs 1871

Photographers Thomas Nevin and Robert Smith, Hobart Tasmania, 1867-1868

April 21, 2008

Robert Smith may have operated a studio prior to his partnership with Nevin, as Mrs Esther Mather referred briefly to the “coloured ones from Smith’s” in a letter to her step-son, dated October 1865. On Robert Smith’s departure to Goulburn, NSW, where he opened a small photographic studio before taking  up farming and politics, Thomas Nevin pasted the verso of a few more photographs with the label bearing their name, but with Smith’s name struck through, and the word “Late”added. … More Photographers Thomas Nevin and Robert Smith, Hobart Tasmania, 1867-1868

Tasmanian Studios to 1900

November 29, 2007

PHOTOGRAPHERS working in TASMANIA 1860s-1900s HOBART, LAUNCESTON & REGIONAL PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIOS ABBOTT, Alfred. Amateur. Hobart. 1859-1863 ABBOTT, Charles (brother). Amateur. Hobart. 1857-1859. AIKENHEAD, William. Launceston. Amateur 1860-1890. ALLPORT, Morton. Amateur. Holbrook Place 1859-1866. AMERICAN STUDIO CO. Collins St. 1880; Allen & Gove. ANSON, Joshua at H.H.BAILY, 1872-1877. ANSON Bros; 132 Liverpool St. 1878-1880; 36 Elizabeth … More Tasmanian Studios to 1900

Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery databases

November 1, 2007

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, including photographs of convicts taken in the 1870s, stereographs and studio portraits. … More Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery databases

With Alfred Bock mid 1860s

October 15, 2007

The verso of this portrait of a standing child bears Alfred Bock’s studio stamp for the City Photographic Establishment which is identical in design to one of the stamps adopted by Thomas Nevin while working with Bock in the early 1860s. Nevin continued to use this design when he acquired Bock’s studio and stock, The City Photographic Establishment, in 1865 on Bock’s departure from Tasmania. … More With Alfred Bock mid 1860s

Alfred Bock & Thomas Nevin at Port Arthur 1860s

October 13, 2007

PERSONAL: – Mr Alfred Bock, writing from Auburn, Victoria, intimates that he is not dead, neither is he “the late Mr. Bock”, as stated in a note under a picture of the late Mr Boyd in a recent copy of “The Tasmanian Mail.” He adds:- “I suppose by the ‘late Mr. Bock’ it means to refer to my father, but he never took a photograph in his life. The picture was actually taken by me on the occasion of my visiting Port Arthur at the request on the officers of the station for the purpose of painting a portrait of Mr Boyd for presentation to that gentleman; I think about 1863 or 1864; I am not quite sure as to the year. I should be glad if you could make the correction, especially as some of my friends have been inquiring about my decease.
… More Alfred Bock & Thomas Nevin at Port Arthur 1860s

Clifford & Nevin portraits with hand-colouring

June 6, 2007

Professional photographers Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923) and Samuel Clifford (1827-1890) were close friends and colleagues over a period dating from ca. 1865 to Clifford’s death in 1890. Both maintained photographic studios in Hobart, producing commercial stereographs in significant numbers, as well as providing the local population with studio portraits. The colouring in this carte and others with a similar provenance (northern Tasmania and Victoria) is sometimes mistakenly assumed to be the work of the studio colourist, which was not the case (McPhee QVMAG, 2007). The colouring was applied after the purchase of the print by a family member, probably by a child playing with a small hand-held stereoscopic viewer. … More Clifford & Nevin portraits with hand-colouring

Tasmanian Newspapers: The Mercury & STILWELL Index

April 11, 2007

Researchers are indebted to the late G.T. Stilwell for his creation of the Stilwell Index during his service at the State Library of Tasmania. G.T. Stilwell also published a short biography of Thomas Nevin with J. S. Kerr outlining the Town Hall dismissal and the misattribution by Chris Long of Nevin’s convict portraiture to A.H. Boyd in The Dictionary of Australian Artists: painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870 , edited by Joan Kerr. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press 1992). … More Tasmanian Newspapers: The Mercury & STILWELL Index

Elizabeth Rachel Day, photo by Nevin & Smith, Hobart 1868

Nevin & Smith studio Elizabeth St. Hobart 1867-1868

April 9, 2007

Robert Smith and Thomas J. Nevin established the firm of Nevin & Smith soon after Nevin acquired the stock, studio and glass house of Alfred Bock at 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town in 1865 on Bock’s imminent departure from Tasmania. The partnership was brief, lasting less than two years. It was dissolved by Thomas Nevin’s family solicitor, the Hon. W. R. Giblin, in February 1868. Two studio stamps and one label have survived from their brief partnership. The first stamp featuring the Prince of Wales’ blazon of three feathers and a coronet, banded with the German “ICH DIEN” (I Serve) dates from the visit of Prince Alfred Ernest Albert, the Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria, in 1868 on the Royal yacht, H.M.S. Galatea

These two children were probably photographed for an album of forty-eight photographic prints depicting the children of Tasmania which was gifted to Prince Alfred at his final reception on 18th January 1868 before returning to NSW where he was to survive an assassination attempt weeks later (at Clontarf, 12th March 1868). According to Jack Cato (1977:58), a group of Tasmanian photographers was invited to contribute to the Children’s Album … … More Nevin & Smith studio Elizabeth St. Hobart 1867-1868