RUTH HOLLICK
1883-1977
text based on Gael Newton's entry in Shades
of Light
The
new Australian professional photographers in the pre-WWI years
included a number of women, reflecting the
greater independence of women, electoral
gains through the suffrage issue and the change in social structures
whereby fewer women expected to be kept at home until marriage.
Alice Mills (1870—1929) trained as a colourist in the Johnstone
O’Shaunessy studio where she met her future husband, the
painter Tom Humphrey (1858—1922), then manager of the studio.
They started their own business in 1900. This later operated under
her name only, probably from 1902 on when illness affected Thomas’ work.
Mills made many portraits of artists, including Tom Roberts, and
one of her husband and daughter Mary.
Judith
Fletcher (w. 1905—1930)
also seems to have had connections with art circles, making a
number of por-traits of Arthur Streeton.
Fletcher began as an amateur and turned professional in 1908.
The New Zealand born sisters, May (1881—1931) and Mina
(1882—1967)
Moore had a studio in New Zealand before May set up a studio
in Sydney at the Bulletin Building and Mina in Melbourne in the
Auditorium
Buildings. The sisters relied on a formula known as Rembrandt
lighting which left much of the picture in rich dark brown tones
and picked
out the main profile or features with a pencil of light from
one side.
Their work was often stamped with both names, but it
was
possibly Mina in Melbourne who made the extraordinary portrait
of Shirley Huxley with her hair flowing, one of the classics
of Australian photography. Its inspired and unusual composition
sidestepped
the formulas of muse or vamp into which much glamour portraiture
polarised in these years.
Many
portrait studios worked in similar styles of lighting and printing
as used by the Moore sisters,
although few did as much
as they did with the formula. Rudolph Buchner, about whom very
little is known, worked in Sydney and Melbourne around 1913—1930.
He made a striking portrait of Mary Gilmore in 1913 and one
of artist Elioth Gruner framed in a doorway in 1925.
Mina
Moore’s
studio was taken over by Ruth Hollick (1882—1977)
who had trained at the National Gallery Art School in Melbourne
in 1902—1903 and like May Moore, who had originally
studied art at Elam Art School in Auckland, was attracted
to the artistic,
literary and theatrical circles of Melbourne. These circles
were most likely more receptive to women as professionals.
Ruth Hollick
retained friendships with students from the National Gallery
School: painter, Dora L. Wilson (1883—1946), and photographer,
Pegg Clarke (c.1890—1956), who exhibited in salons
in addition to running a studio in Melbourne. Dorothy Izard
became
Hollick’s
partner around 1918.
Hollick
had a special talent with child photography, still
a taxing subject in the 1920s despite technological advances.
Her work filled the illustrated magazines of the day including
Sydney Ure Smith’s The Home, founded in 1920.
In
child and social portraiture Hollick was the Melbourne
counterpart to Harold Cazneaux in Sydney who had an appointment
as special
photographer to The Home. Hollick’s studies were
less stylised than many of Cazneaux’s. An
ingenious portrait of the young and seemingly affluent Master
Quentin
Cain of around 1930, equalled
the novel compositions which Cazneaux favoured and
left a strong sense of the subject. In
the I930s Hollick retired from the city
studio and worked from home.
Gael Newton AM
Gael Newton's publication Shades of Light
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