from the special collections of the Fryer Library
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 UQFL2 Hayes Collection, Album 6, Image 14entitled "Solomon Island Chief". |
South Sea Island SubjectsHayes Collection, UQFL2, Album H6
One of the many treasures from the Hayes Collection to reveal itself in recent times is a rare album of photographs from the studio of Henry King.
Henry King, born in Dorset, England in 1855, established a photographic studio in Sydney in 1880 where he produced some of the finest portraits and landscape studies of the time.
Although much of his early work was studio portraiture, the development of the dry-plate process allowed him to undertake landscape photography and he won a bronze medal for his photographs at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
The album in the Hayes collection has images taken in Fiji, Samoa, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. They are credited to King, but it is however likely that they were or obtained from photographers working in the South Pacific around 1880s.
The album on display contains 52 Albumen prints, measuring approx. 15 x 21 cm each. They are an outstanding example of photographic studies of peoples in the Australasian region, produced to sell to interested people worldwide. A list has been made of the images with captions and brief descriptions. It can be viewed and downloaded from here. |
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Marg Powell, Fryer Library | |
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Further Reading:
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