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Les origines (1862-1895)

Fils d'un coloriste, Henry, Walter Barnett quitte l'école à l'âge de 13 ans et va commencer sa carrière photographique comme assistant de studio de Robert Stewart (Bourke Street) vers 1875 où il fait la connaissance du futur peintre Tom Roberts. En [1882], il ouvre, à Hobart, un studio avec Harold Riise avec lequel il crée la marque "Riise and Barnett". Le partenariat prend fin le 31 août 1883.

The Mercury, Hobart, mercredi 23 janvier 1884, p. 3.

Henry Walter Barnett quitte l'Australie pour se rendre en Grande-Bretagne où il perfectionne son métier auprès des célèbres photographes William et Daniel Downey. Il est de retour à Melbourne en décembre 1886 :

PASSENGERS FROM LONDON.
The following passengers had booked in London up to Oct. 15, to proceed to Australia per R.M.S. Rome, which arrived last Monday: For Melbourne: [...] Mr. H. W. Barnett.

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The Inquirer and Commercial News, Perth, mercredi 1^er décembre 1886, p. 4.

 En 1887, Henry Walter Barnett ouvre, à Sydney l'établissement photographique "Falk's" :

My brother, you know, Walter Barnett, founded Falk's in Sydney, and then created the title now so widely known. That was in 1886, and in 1892 he opened the Melbourne branch. He and Jefferson Jackson, a fine fellow, now in Sydney, brilliant architect to his finger-tips, designed the studio as you see it. The scheme cost between three and four thousand to complete. Meanwhile, I was printer for the firm, and, by Jove, how I did have to work! Under Walter it was no joke. He was so exacting, so artistically conscientious, a master in this art, for photography to him is an art, as it is also to me.

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Critic, Adelaide, samedi 16 décembre 1899, p. 45.

En juillet 1890, il dépose le nom de marque "Vitagraph" :

[5719] Registrar General's Office,
Sydney, 17th July, 1890.
TRADE-MARK
IT is hereby notified that Henry Walter Barnett (trading as Falk & Co.), of 496, George-street, in the City of Sydney, Colony of New South Wales, has, in pursuance of the 4th section of the Trade-marks Act 28 Vic. Nº. 9, applied to register a Trade-mark of the following description, viz.:-The word "Vitagraph,"-copies of which may be seen at this Office, and which Trade-mark is intended by the said Henry Walter Barnett (trading as Falk & Co.) to be applied to photographs.
Notice is hereby given that unless it be shown to my satisfaction, before the expiration of fourteen days from the publication, hereof, that such Trade-mark has been previously registered, or that some other person is entitled to such Trade-mark, or that such Trade-mark is so like some other Trade-mark that it may be mistaken for the same, a certificate will, in pursuance of the provisions of the said Ait, be issued to Henry Walter Barnett (trading as Falk & Co.), certifying that he is entitled to the use of the same.
CHARLES PINHEY,
Registrar General.

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New South Wales Government Gazette, Sydney, vendredi 18 juillet 1890, p. 5538.

 À l'occasion de sa tournée australienne, l'actrice française Sarah Bernhardt se fait photographier par "Falk":

The following brief letter has been received by Falk, the Australian photographic artist, from Mme. Sarah Bernhardt: "I thank you a thousand and thousand times for the adorable and artistic photographs which you have made of me; they are the prettiest, and most faithful. I take both your hands and tell you once more thanks and au revoir."

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Evening News, Sydney, vendredi 14 août 1891, p. 6.

Falk Studio, Sarah Bernhardt, Sydney, 1891.
Source: National Portrait Gallery

C'est à la même époque qu'Henry Walter Barnett part pour les États-Unis à bord du Monowai (août 1891) avec l'intention de se renseigner sur le projet d'Exposition à Chicago :

Mr. Henry Walter Barnett, better known as "Falk," the photographer, Royal Arcade, George-street, is the gentleman referred to. Mr. Barnett is a sound man of business, is admittedly at the head of his profession in this country, and has made four business trips to America and Europe almost within as many years. Having these facts in view, a representative of the EVENING NEWS waited upon Mr. Barnett on Saturday, and obtained the following interesting account of Chicago and its proposed faire, and the fallacy of extending Australian representation to either: He said he left Sydney by the Union Company's steamship Monowai sometime in August, 1891, for San Francisco...

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Evening News, Sydney, samedi 26 mars 1892, p. 2.

De retour, il va inaugurer, en mars 1895, une succursale à Melbourne qui semble avoir été dirigée par son frère Charles et sa soeur Phoebe :

La renommée d'Henry Walter Barnett est alors importante, et il est souvent réclamé par des figures célèbres de l'époque qui souhaitent se faire photographier :

Mr. H. W. Barnett, better known as Falk, the Melb. and Sydney photographer, whose excellent work has frequently adorned these pages, has the exclusive right of "taking" Mrs. Potter and Kyrie Bellew during their Australian tour, as he had on the occasion of their last visit. In fact, these players, who are reckoned the best of subjects for posing purposes that have visited Australia, refuse to sit to any other camera men. Mr. Barnett photographed Mrs. Potter first 12 years ago, when he was with the famous firm of W. and D. Downey, the Queen's photographers, of London, and his pictures of the beauteous lady have appeared in nearly every paper in the world.

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Free Lance, Melbourne, jeudi 25 juin 1896, p. 5.

Le cinématographe (1896)

Si les conditions de leur rencontre ne nous sont pas connues, Henry Walter Barnett va être en contact avec Marius Sestier après l'arrivée de ce dernier, en septembre 1896. En effet, dès le 1^er octobre les deux hommes apparaissent comme les directeurs du Salon Lumière de Sydney. où est présenté le cinématographe :

Mons M. Sesher [sic], who has brought the machine to Australia, has been accredited directly from the patentees, Messrs Lnmiere, of Lyons, France and gives an identical series of views with those now drawing all London to the Empire Theatre. Mons M Sesher is to be congratulated not only on the business he is doing, but also on having been able to arrange to do his business through such gentlemen as Mr Wettmacott and Mr Barnett. It is hardly possible to describe the wonderful beauties of the Cinematographe.

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Truth, Sydney, dimanche 4 octobre 1896, p. 2.

The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, samedi 31 octobre 1896, p. 2.

Mr. H. Walter Barnett, who introduced the famous Lumiere Cinematographe in Sydney, announces in another colum that he is now able to supply complete apparata for producing the animated pictures by the Lumiere method. Information will be given at Falk's Melbourne Studio only.The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, samedi 8 mai 1897, p. 10.

Et après... (1897-1934)

https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/barnett-henry-walter-5139

https://historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=2899

AN AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHER
LONDON, October 1.
Mr Walter Barnett has obtained the premiership medal of the British Royal Photographic Society for head studies of the late Sir Henry Parkes and of Mr. Henri Kowalski, the eminent musician.The Golden Age, Coolgarie, samedi 2 octobre 1897, p. 3.

H.W. Barnett (Falk, of Melbourne) has been ill with rheumatism. His many friends will be glad to know he is better and goes to the south of France shortly for the winter.Melbourne Punch, Melbourne, jeudi 20 janvier 1898, p. 16.

Melbourne Punch, Melbourne, 5 janvier 1899, p. 11.

Henry Walter Barnett ouvre un studio à Londres en 1899 où Sarah Bernhardt se fait photographier.

IN the last number of The Broadway Magazine Miss Dorothy Usner, who visited you with Nat Goodwin, has an article on how to succeed on the stage, illustrated with the beautiful art photos of herself that Walter Barnett took at the Falk Studios in Melbourne, and which she has had labelled as being 'taken from poses suggested by herself,' and copyrighted by her some years ago. I wonder what Mr Barnett would say ? Miss Usner is a young lady who appreciates to the full the value of self-advertisement, and the public here watches her doings with great interest. Recently, following on Miss Doroty Vane's example, Miss Usner caused a mild sensation by declaring her intention of forsaking the stage and the follow mockeries of life and devoting herself to religous work. But she is still acting.Melbourne Punch, Melbourne, jeudi 28 décembre 1899, p. 11.

PHOTOGRAPHER OF KINGS
Mr. H. W. Barnett Home After 30 Years
One of London's leading West End photographers before he retired a few years ago, Mr H. Walter Barnett has come back to Melbourne to have a look over his home town.
Mr Barnett has specially photographed King Edward, King George and the Queen, and a host of celebrities in England, public men like Lords Balfour and Haldane. and distinguished soldiers such as Haig and Rawlinson.
A prominent [artist] has said of Mr Barrett that he is more an artist than a photographer, being the progenitor of character studies through she lens.
Mr. Barnett left Melbourne 30 years ago to follow with greater success in a bigger field the success he had here, and in Sydney. He was associated in Australia with the first production of the cinema, and in 1897 controlled the first set of pictures made of the Melbourne Cup. These were shown for some time in the Empire Theatre in London.
BEAUTY OUT OF DUST
Back now after all those years he admits that a city more beautiful than he ever imagined has grown out of the dust. The old Treasury first comes to his mind— which still might be put into a garden in Florence and would look perfectly in keeping with its Italian surroundings."
The Burke and Wills statue is "one of the best pieces of comparatively modern work in the way of fine bronze that I know." And he wonders why the names of the architects and sculptors are not perpetuated on their creations.
Since the war Mr Barnett has lived mostly in France, with a year or so in Italy, studying and collecting art—the object of his life's work. For years he has been associated with the artists and sculptors of England and the Continent. He has brought buck with him a collection of French works representing the modern feeling in technique and method. These he hopes to exhibit here, probably next month.
Most of them are landscapes and flowers — works of such men as J. F. Blanche, one of France's loading artists, and of tho Abbe Calles, of Grenoble In the province of Dauphine.
"Most people In Australia." said Mr Barnett today, "think that there is only one aspect of French art— what is known as extravagant futurism and post-impressionism. But there are other manifestations by men who have taken up the great Impressionists of the seventies and eighties of last century, and are carrying on the tradition of the better and more sane outlook.
"A great deal of the extravagant work Is being done, not by actual French people, but by Russians, Czecho-Slovaks, and Poles, who live in Paris as students. This sort of work became so extravagant in Berlin that the German Government brought in a Bill providing for a Government censorship.
"I went recently to the opening of the International art exhibition in Venice. The extravagance and absurdity of a great deal of the work outside the English pavilion, brought down the condemnation of the Roman Catholic Archbishop, who had noticed posted in tho churches prohibiting his people attending the exhibition.
"The futurists, the Germans, and the Italians themselves were to blame. They treated religious subjects in a blasphemous kind of way, and I must say I was entirely in sympathy with the Archbishop's action.
SOME GOOD, PERHAPS
"Of course, there may be something of the best in the modern movement — something that ultimately may be beneficial that we must not condemn off hand. Unfortunately, it encourages a lot of men with little or no merit to Imagine that there is a distinction about their very faults".
Mr Barnett thinks that some admirable work is being done by Australian artists — "but they must always be influenced, by outside, by Europe and France in particular, for France, despite all the changes that are taking .place, is still the centre of all the real art movements.
"Australia must, of necessity, depend on. tho work coming in from outside, so that students and picture lovers may see what is evolving. There is no finality in the manifestations of art, it Is a change that is continuous.
"I notice a big Improvement in all the condition of life in Melbourne: the artistic development is most noticeable. Therefore, I cannot understand a Government that puts a tax on art through the tariff."The Herald, Melbourne, mercredi 8 février 1927, p. 4.

Sources

DE SERVILLE Paul H., "Henry Walter Barnett (1862-1934)", Australian Dictionary of Biography (https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/barnett-henry-walter-5139)

MELL Paul, "The Man Behind the Camera", The Critic, Adelaide, 16 décembre 1899, p. 47.

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