Tasmanian Photographer by Margaret Tassell and David Wood

Tasmanian Photographer

From the John Watt Beattie Collection

Compiled by Margaret Tassell and David Wood

Macmillan, 1981, [First Edition], ISBN 0333337379, black and white photographs throughout, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, no inscriptions, minor foxing to half title page, dustjacket shows minor edge and shelf wear with minor rubbing to edges and corners, some discolouration to jacket (See photographs)

“John Watt Beattie’s photographs of Tasmania at the turn of the century were among the first to shape its image as a wild, romantic and rugged island.  Beattie’s imaginative approach to the relatively new art of photography and his meticulous recording of Tasmania’s history, scenic beauty and resources made him one of Tasmania’s best-known and most popular personalities.  Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, Beattie emigrated to Tasmania in 1878.  The following year, with a horse and cart and a camera, he mounted a photographic expedition to Lake St. Clair – the first of many such journeys to Tasmania’s most remote and spectacular areas, many of which he photographed for the first time.
In 1896, Beattie was appointed Tasmania’s official photographer, and over the next thirty-four years he assembled a unique collection of enlargements, postcards and lantern-slide albums of Tasmania’s penal settlements, its cities and towns and the rugged West Coast.”