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Charles Henry Kerry (1857-1928);Henry King (1855-1923)624…
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Auction House:
Auction Location:
Melbourne
Date:
19-May-2015
Lot No.
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Description:
Charles Henry Kerry (1857-1928);Henry King (1855-1923)624 Australian Aboriginal NSW639 Australian Aboriginal NSW1115 Australian Aborigine1364 Aboriginal with Mask1957 'Cunningham', Aboriginal Armidale District2156 'Graamoni', Warrior Cootamundra Tribe2158 'Nerriga', Aboriginal Chief2644 Aboriginal, Monaro District2656 Aboriginal, Namoi River[Illeg]. Aboriginal NSWUntitled (Aboriginal Lady)Untitled (Ceremony)Untitled (Aboriginal Man)2599 Aboriginal Ceremony2606 Aboriginal Ceremony, 'Following the Footsteps of the Deity'2607 Aboriginal Ceremony, 'The Bora tree'2610 Aboriginal Ceremony, 'A Duel to the Death'2610 Aboriginal Ceremony, 'A Duel to the Death'2617 Aboriginal, 'Waiting the Decision of the Kings'(early twentieth century)silver gelatin print21.4 x 16.6 cm (19)PROVENANCETyrrell's Museum, SydneyAngus and Robertson, New South WalesPrivate Collection, New South Wales (purchased from the above in the 1950s)By descentPrivate Collection, SydneyCharles Kerry (1857-1928) and Henry King (1855-1923) were among Sydney's most successful commercial photographers of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Both are noted for their studio portraits of the Indigenous people of Eastern Australia. In 1885 Kerry was invited to prepare Aboriginal portraits and ceremonial scenes for the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London. (1) King was awarded a certificate and a bronze medal for the size, technique and artistic finish of his portraits at the World Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. (2)All but one of the current images was shot in the studio. I ndividuals, who may have entered the studio wearing Western cloths, were undressed and redressed in 'typical' costume. Some were posed in stiff warlike postures in front of painted backdrops, holding generic artefacts from the photographer's collection. The invention of dry-plate technology enabled both Kerry and King to venture into the landscape with increased ease, producing popular scenic views, urban street scenes, as well as recording landmark events. Both photographers travelled widely, using portable studios to create portraits of people from Bombala to the Namoi River and from the Atherton Tablelands to Roma. Charles Kerry famously used the expanding rail network to reach Indigenous subjects. The current images capture the appetite for ethnographic photography in the 19th century. Driven by fascination with racial difference and classification, the collection exposes the concerns of the photographers as strikingly as it does the subjugation of the sitters. Posed in the studio as 'warriors', many of these images record the pain of people entrapped by the cruelty of colonial conquest. Strangely mute, the images are a measure of the distance between settler society and the diverse peoples of Aboriginal Australia. For all their problematic qualities however these precious images provide a vivid record of individuals who were enlisted into a photographic project to describe race. John Kean(1) Keast Burke, 'Kerry, Charles Henry (1857-1928)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb. anu. edu. au/biography/kerry-charles-henry-6940/text12049(2) Richard King, 'King, Henry (1855-1923)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National centre of Biography, Australian National University http://adb. anu. edu. au/biography/king-henry-6959/text12087, accessed 10 April 2013
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Category:
Unclassified