About the Exhibition
Winding path through the Botanic Gardens,
Sydney, New South Wales, 1880s
albumen print; 15.0 x 19.8 cm
From the album ‘New South Wales Photographs,
1880–1897’ nla.pic-vn4278274
Curated for the National Library of Australia by Helen Ennis, A Modern Vision features the full range of Charles Bayliss’s output—architectural photography, panoramas, landscapes and scenes of Australian life.
It is the first exhibition to display the various strands of Bayliss’s photographic practice. It encompasses his apprenticeship with Beaufoy Merlin, owner of the American & Australasian Photographic Company from 1870–1873, his work for the famous German-born entrepreneur B.O. Holtermann from 1873–1875, and his independent career from 1876 until his death in 1897 at the age of 47.
The exhibition is built around the National Library’s considerable holdings of photographs by Bayliss, augmented with a small number of important loans from other institutions. Also on display is a selection of recently discovered photographs, now held at the Library, which provide new insights into Charles Bayliss’s crucial early years as a photographer and the pictorial representation of Australian colonial life.
Helen Ennis is one of Australia’s leading photography curators, historians and writers. Formerly Curator of International and Australian Photography at the National Gallery of Australia, she is currently Senior Lecturer in Art Theory and Associate Head, Undergraduate, at the Australian National University School of Art.
Relevant links
Intersections (Bayliss is a featured photographer)
Other titles by Helen Ennis:
Cazneaux: The Quiet Observer
Olive
Cotton: Photographer
Man with a Camera: Frank Hurley Overseas
