The use of Copyright Registers by photographers and other artists provides a useful barometer of cultural assumptions over the period from the 1870s to the 1950s. This paper will explore images that both appropriate and subvert anthropological claims about Aboriginality. It is possible to demonstrate that whilst the field appears to require an engagement with anthropologically-derived visual constructions of ‘authenticity’ and ‘Aboriginality’, commercial photographers used this anchoring as a base from which to project diverse and contested claims of Aboriginality. I will argue, however, that commercial photographers did not so much diminish or contaminate an anthropological paradigm as extend a rhetorical activity of inventing and reinventing authenticity.
NSW Registers of Proprietors of Copyright, Fine Art, Part 2B/(9 boxes), 1879-1881, NAA C2229/10.
2.
NSW Index to Register B/Fine Arts etc./Subject, (NSW Subject Index, Fine Arts Copyrights), CRS SP.1006/S.4.
3.
Bell, Diane (1998) Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin: A world that is, was and will be. North Melbourne: Spinifex.
4.
Boddington, Jennie (1975) ‘J.W. Lindt, photographer (1845-1926)’, Art Bulletin of Victoria:23-27.
5.
British Association for the Advancement of Science (1929) Notes And Queries On Anthropology, 5th edn.London: The Royal Anthropological Institute.
6.
Brown, Michael F.et al. (1998) ‘Can Culture Be Copyrighted?’, Current Anthropology39: 193-222.
7.
Butel, Elizabeth (1985) Margaret Preston: The Art of Constant Arrangement, Ringwood: Viking and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
8.
Byers, Paul (1977) ‘Still Photography in the Systematic Recording and Analysis of Behavioral Data’ [1964] and ‘Cameras Don’t Take Pictures’ [1966], Afterimage4: 10-11, 20 and 8-9 respectively.
9.
Campbell, Jean (1988) Early Sydney Moderns: John Young and the Macquarie Galleries 1916-1946. Roseville NSW: Craftsman House.
10.
Collier, John Jr. (1975) ‘Photography and Visual Anthropology’, in Paul Hockings (ed.) Principles Of Visual Anthropology. The Hague: Mouton.
DaCapra, Dominick (1985) History and Criticism. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press.
14.
De Lorenzo, Catherine (1993) ‘Ethnophotography: Photographic Images of Aboriginal Australians’, PhD thesis, University of Sydney.
15.
De Lorenzo, Catherine and Dysart, Dinah (1988) A Changing Relationship: Aboriginal Themes In Australian Art c.1938-1988. Sydney: S.H. Ervin Gallery, National Trust Centre.
16.
Dewdney, Andrew, comp. and Phillips, Sandra, ed. (1994) Racism, Representation and Photography, Sydney: Inner City Education Centre.
17.
Donnelly, Karen (1995) ‘The Discovery of a 19th Century Photographer - Thomas Cleary’, Bulletin (Olive Pink Society)7: 9-21.
18.
Eagle, Mary (1989) Australian Modern Painting Between the Wars 1914-1939. Sydney and London: Bay Books.
19.
Edwards, Elizabeth, ed. (1992) Anthropology and Photography 1860-1920. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, in association with The Royal Anthropological Institute, London.
20.
Edwards, Elizabeth (1997) ‘Editorial’, History of Photography21 (Spring): 1-2.
21.
Fourmile, Henrietta (1996) ‘Copyrites: Reproducing Aboriginal Culture’, ART AsiaPacific3(4): 34-38.
22.
Goin, Chelsea Miller (1997) ‘Malinowski’s Ethnographic Photography: Image, Text and Authority’, History of Photography21(1): 67-72.
23.
hooks, bell (1992) Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press.
24.
im Thurn, E. F. (1892-3) ‘Anthropological Uses of the Camera’, Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 22, 184-203.
25.
Johnson, Vivien (1996) Copyrites: Aboriginal Art in the Age of Reproductive Technologies. Sydney: National Indigenous Arts Advocacy Association and Macquarie University.
26.
Jones, Shar (1985) J.W. Lindt: Master Photographer. Melbourne: Currey O’Neil Ross, on behalf of the Library Council of Victoria.
27.
McClintock, Anne (1994) ‘Soft Soaping Empire: Commodity Racism and Imperial Advertising’, in George Robertson, Melinda Mashet al. (eds) Traveller’s Tales: Narratives of Home and Displacement, pp. 131-154. London and New York: Routledge.
28.
Mitchell, W.J. T. (1994) Picture Theory. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
29.
Morphy, Howard and Edwards, Elizabeth, eds (1988) Australia in Oxford, Monograph 4. University of Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum.
30.
O’Reilly, Bernard (1963) Over the Hills, Brisbane: W.R. Smith & Paterson.
31.
Portman, M. V. (1895-6) ‘Photography for Anthropologists’, The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland25: 75-87.
32.
Ruby, Jay (1976) ‘In A Pic’s Eye: Interpretive Strategies for Deriving Significance and Meaning from Photographs’, Afterimage3(9): 5-7.
33.
Ruby, Jay (1996) ‘Visual Anthropology’ in David Levinson and Melvin Ember (eds) Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, pp. 1345-1351. New York: Henry Holt and Co.
34.
Sayers, Andrew (1994) Aboriginal Artists of the Nineteenth Century. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
35.
Scherer, Joanna C. (1992) ‘The Photographic Document: Photographs as Primary Data in Anthropological Enquiry’, in Elizabeth Edwards (ed.) Anthropology and Photography 1860-1920, New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, in association with The Royal Anthropological Institute, London.
36.
Scherer, Joanna C. (1997) ‘A Preponderance of Evidence: the 1851-52 Omaha Delegation Daguerr[e]otypes Recovered’, abstract of presentation for Visual Research Conference, [http://etext.virginia.edu/VAR/vrc/vrc97.html]
37.
Seitz, Dr (1898) ‘Photography for Anthropological Purposes’, The Australian Photography Journal Annual, 70-71.
38.
Singleton Argus, Saturday, 3 November 1900: 3.
39.
Tagg, John (1988) The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories. Houndmills: Macmillan Education.
40.
Urry, James (1973) ‘Notes and Queries on Anthropology and the Development of Field Methods in British Anthropology, 1870-1920 (Hocart Prize Essay 1972)’, Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland for 1972, 45-57.
41.
Worth, Sol, ed. (1981) Studying Visual Communication. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
