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Blackwood's Panorama of Sydney & Harbour From Government House…
Auction House:
Auction Location:
Melbourne
Date:
20-Jun-2016
Lot No.
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Description:
Blackwood's Panorama of Sydney & Harbour From Government House 1858, 12 albumen photoprints (comprising 1 panorama in 11 sections - 1 photoprint) in a leather and gold embossed album. Images 19 x 29 cm., Panorama length is 324.5 cm. Provenance: Sotheby's, Fine Australian Books, 28 August 1989, Lot 8. Notes: Olaf William Blackwood, also known as William Blackwood, was a portrait painter of Swedish and Scottish descent. It was, however as a professional photographer of panoramic Sydney views that he achieved the greatest success. By 1858, he had established a photographic studio in Woolloomooloo and began photographing surrounding street scenes, using the collodion wet-plate process. He took eleven imperial size, wet plate photographs from the roof of Government House which he then combined to form a large scale Panorama of Sydney Harbour, the first and largest produced in the colony. His panoramic views were met with critical acclaim, and were praised by The Sydney Morning Herald as 'faultless', 'super-excellent' and the 'largest yet seen'1 By August, his 180 degree panorama of Sydney Harbour was again praised as 'superior to anything of the kind we have seen. Nothing dim or smoky appears... no muddled trees - no hazy outlines - no hard sheets of glaring white for water'2 This was the most sophisticated and extensive panorama photography ever produced in Australia. Blackwood published another album that same year consisting of some of the earliest Australian architectural studies, and photographs of Sydney's nine banks. From a technical point of view, Blackwood's albums were an extraordinary achievement. Large format views required extreme skill on the part of the photographer, and he coated his plates and processed them while still wet. In the early 1860s Blackwood worked in partnership with Henry Goodes and they created eight photographic views which were submitted to the New South Wales section of the 1862 London International Exhibition. Between 1862 and 1864, Blackwood worked with James Walker at Walker's Pitt Street studio. Despite his early, energetic and entrepreneurial projects, little is known of Blackwood's output after 1859 and he seems to have left photography after 1864. 1. Sydney Morning Herald, 26 March 1858 2. Sydney Morning Herald, 4 August 1858
Estimate:
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Price:
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Category:
Unclassified