Packed with great biographical details and photographs of the women whose work was exhibited in the national tour of 1981-1982 , the above accompanying publication brought to light the little known extensive involvement by women in this field .
It states that a Mrs Oswald Allen ran a photographic studio in Sydney with her husband in 1871 ; nine other women had their own studios in Sydney between 1860 and 1900. The first Australian Exhibition of Women's Work , held in the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings , October 1907, displayed 16,000 entries , 98 photographers from all states entering 298 shots .
In books about the history of the camera in Australia, the work of women received little coverage .
Adelie Hurley , born 1910 , daughter of Captain Frank Hurley the famous Australian still and newsreel photographer, won a prize when she was 11 with a Box Brownie . Self taught , she became a freelance photographer for Pix magazine in 1938,possibly one of the first three women press photographers in Australia .
She stowed away on an overland troop convoy and got photographs of Darwin before the civil evacuation of the city and the Japanese bombing . Off to America she went in 1947, came back and worked on The Sun, Sydney , also the Daily Telegraph and the Australian Women's Weekly . Her assignments included overseas trips , outback stations and Aboriginal sacred sites in Arnhem Land . One husband managed a resort north of Bowen, North Queensland .
Sarah Chinnery (1887-1970), born Sarah Johnston Neill in Belfast , Northern Island , she was sent to England to housekeep for three of her brothers, all dentists , when her father remarried. Given a Little Nipper camera , she became a member of three postal camera clubs and won several prizes.
In search of subjects, she rode a motorbike , said to be the second woman in England to have a licence. Like her brothers, she studied dentistry and did work on Australian troops . In 1919 she married Australian anthropology student E.W.Pearson Chinnery , studied town planning at Cambridge and attended anthropology lectures in preparation for moving to New Guinea with her husband when he became Government Anthropologist there .
She spent 16 years in New Guinea from 1921 , travelled far and wide with her camera , her photographs published in Australian newspapers , three pages in the New York Times in 1935.
Present at the 1933 first session of the New Guinea Legislative Council , she also captured the 1937 volcanic eruption at Rabaul. On trips to Australia to have her children , before settling in Melbourne , she met several arts and crafts people. She knew Ellis Rowan , the intrepid painter of wildflowers and birds who travelled through New Guinea and North Queensland.
Bernice Agar 1885-1976, born in Bowen , North Queensland, after training in the Bain Photographic Studios, Toowoomba , went to Sydney and became renowned for her shots of socialite women and leading artists, including Thea Proctor .
The Moore Sisters . Born on a small farm north of Auckland , New Zealand , in the l880s , their father a timber cutter , May and Mina , became prominent in photography in Melbourne and Sydney . May , a striking woman , six feet tall , wore Bohemian dresses; her photographs were run in The Home, Triad and The Lone Hand . Her husband , Harry Wilkes, a dentist , gave up his practice to fully support May in her studio . They shared an interest in Australian art and books and had a substantial library .
At one stage May had a studio in the Bulletin building in Sydney where she photographed cartoonists such as "Hop " ( L. Hopkins ) , other well known identities, the Melba Opera Company .
Both sisters photographed many young men going off to fight in WWl. The highly detailed commentary in this most interesting catalogue said a number of women photographers had never married after young men they knew had been killed in the war .
The three enthusiasts responsible for pulling the exhibition together and compiling all the biographical information were Barbara Hall , born 1946, Victoria , television , radio and print journalist, researcher . Founding member Women's Art Movement , Sydney . Organised two exhibitions as part of feminist collectives: Self Image and Women's Images of Women , 1977. Contributed to Lip magazine 1976-1980.
Jenni Mather , born 1946, Victoria , a former librarian , working photographer. Christine Gillespie , born 1944, Victoria , gave her nine year old daughter Emily a Box Brownie camera in 1980 , which she used to take the following shot of the three , from the left , Gillespie, Mather and Hall .
