Album of Cave Photographs.

SPURLING Stephen the third (c.1920.])

£2000.00 

Please contact us in advance if you would like to view this book at our Curzon Street shop.

60 photographs measuring approx 150 by 205mm laid down on cream card with ms. ink captions beneath (24) or on the negative (36). Held in a cloth-backed card album, the leaves cockled, some edges chipped (not affecting photographs) but very good, ms. index to verso of upper board. [Launceston,

A fine group of images of the interior of caves in Hastings in the south of Tasmania and Mole Creek, which is just to the west of Launceston. The sixty images here includes interiors of King George's Cave, Newdegate Cave, Beattie Cave, and Queen Mary's Bower in Hastings; and King Solomon's Caves (the Sparkling canopy), Marrakupa (now Marakoopa) Cave, Scotts Cave, Baldock's Cave, and Gunns Plains Cave by Mole Creek. In the background of image 28, captioned "The Entrance to Great Hall Newdegate Cave Hastings", stands the sole human figure in the entire group: a man wearing a white laboratory coat over his suit. If not a picture of Spurling himself, it is certainly one of his assistants.

 

The majority of images are signed in the negative "Spurling" which could be either Stephen Spurling the second or the third. Both are known to have photographed Tasmanian caves during their career: Spurling II was based in Launceston and was known to have made trips to Tasmania's west and photographed caves and mining activity in the 1880s. Among Spurling III's achievements are his "landscape shots of Tasmanian wilderness [... and] a series of cave photographs in the Gunns Plains area" (Long, 107). It should be said that this album feels more like the product of the early twentieth century than the late nineteenth.

 

Over three generations, the Spurling family were an early and important firm of photographers in Tasmania. Stephen Spurling I (1821-92) operated from Hobart and was primarily a studio photographer. He exhibited work at the Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition in 1866. His son, Stephen II (1847-1924), is believed to be the first photographer in Australia to use the dry-plate method. Indeed, he was renowned for his technical proficiency and his work was exhibited at the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition in 1888, the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, and the 1895 Intercolonial Photographic Exhibition in Geelong. He was also appointed judge of competitions held by the Northern Tasmanian Camera Club. Legend has it that his photographs of train crashes were developed on location by converting one of the ruined carriages into a dark room.

 

Stephen Spurling III (1876-1962) joined the family firm in 1902 and oversaw its most successful period through to 1937. He is considered the best of the family photographers, adding artistic merit to excellent technique. He was primarily interested in landscape photography and made extensive tours through Tasmania, "and his coverage of the Cradle Mountain and Western Tiers area is probably the earliest extensive record of the area" (Long, ibid). He is known to have taken the earliest photographs of the Gordon and Franklin Rivers as well as the first aerial shots of the state in 1919.

 

A coherent group of images in excellent condition.

 

Burgess, Christine, "Obituary of Stephen Spurling II" accessed online http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/spurling-stephen-1580 on 20 March, 2019; Long, Chris, Tasmanian Photographers 1840-1940 (Hobart, 1995), pp.105-107.

Stock Code: 231815

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