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The story of Frank Hurley’s early professional life as a photographer, previous to his departure with Douglas Mawson for the Antarctic, has been very much overshadowed by the well documented and much published stories about his later life and adventures.
As with most creative people, Frank Hurley's early years were crucial to setting work practices which were to underpin his more famous achievements later in his long career. The early period of his life in Sydney is intertwined with the world of photography at end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Centuries.
Most Frank Hurley was not a revolutionary in his work, but there is little doubt that he was quick to pick up on available techniques and develop them into a distinctive style. Much of the documentation on Frank Hurley’s early life and work has been derived from versions of stories, told by Frank Hurley himself. |
Primary research soon reveals some doubts about the accuracy of some of these storylines. Research has also revealed clues and pieces of information on Mr J F Hurley and his work as well as about some of his associates and collaborators.
In the exercise of building a story worth telling, our man has been extremely successful in being the marketing manager of his own biography. Many writers on Hurley have been subject to Frank’s own spin-doctoring and you have to admire anyone who can achieve such a success in promotions, with the effect lasting well after he died in January 1962. |
