860
successful attempt at representing the native blacks
truthfully as well as artistically” (Kerr, 1992, 475). The
N.S.W. Government purchased albums for presentation
to scientifi c institutions in England, and via an estab-
lished international network of collecting agencies these
photographs became the most widely distributed images
of Aboriginal people in the late nineteenth century
(Orchard, 1999, 163–70). The artifi ciality of the studio
tableaux adopted by Lindt, which convey a poignancy
of loss and displacement of his Gumbaynggirr and
Bundjalung subjects probably not intended by the pho-
tographer, has been discussed elsewhere (Jones, 1985;
Poignant, 1992; Annear, 1997; Orchard, 1999).
Lindt moved to Melbourne in 1876, established a new
studio in 1877, and embarked on a series of landscape
portfolios, including Fernshaw and Watts River Scenery,
Victoria (c.1878–82), Scenery on the Ovens and Buck-
land Rivers, Victoria (c.1878–82), and Lorne, Louttit
Bay, and Cape Otway Ranges (1883). He also made
an extensive record of Melbourne public buildings and
streetscapes. In June 1880 Lindt was commissioned by a
Melbourne newspaper to travel to Glenrowan, Victoria to
document the capture of the notorious bush-rangers, the
Kelly gang. Arriving in the aftermath, Lindt produced
one of his most memorable wet plate images, Body of
Joe Byrne, member of the Kelly gang, hung up for pho-
tography, Benalla, 1880 (National Gallery of Australia).
It has been acclaimed as one of Australia’s fi rst press
photographs (Newton, 1988, 44). In the same year Lindt
commenced his use of the recently introduced dry plate
negative process—he received the fi rst consignment to
arrive in Melbourne—and from 1884 operated a sec-
ond studio installed behind his newly acquired estate,
“Ethelred,” to service demand for his work. Sales of his
Blacks’ Spur scenery amounted to approximately 25,000
copies printed from the original negatives between 1882
and 1892 (Lindt, 1920, 3).
From 1869 Lindt imported quality photographic
equipment and supplies direct from Germany and from
about 1881 he was using recently introduced Voigtlän-
der Euryscope lenses in the fi eld and in the studio to
produce enlargements. At this time he also became
the sole agent for numerous studio supplies, including
Haake & Albers’ studio cameras, and Enholtz’s scenic
backgrounds.
In 1885 he travelled to the newly proclaimed Protec-
torate of British New Guinea, collecting native artifacts
and producing several hundred dry plate negatives of
tribal life and village scenes. A selection of fi fty of these
illustrated his Picturesque New Guinea, produced using
a new autotype process. In 1888 The Argus commented
on exceptional quality of Lindt’s New Guinea photo-
graphs with directness: “It has often been a matter of
discussion how far, or whether at all, photography may
be considered a fi ne art. By the work of J. W. Lindt this
question is decided in a way that is a triumph for his
profession” (The Argus 27 November, 1888). In 1889
Lindt moved studio to 177 Collins Street and was com-
missioned by the Victorian Government to document the
fl edgling irrigation settlement of Mildura, in north-west
Victoria. Here he produced a variety of scenes, many
of which are imbued with a sense of occasion and civic
optimism associated with this pioneer venture.
Under the auspices of the Royal Geographical So-
ciety (R.G.S.), Lindt made further expeditions, to the
New Hebrides (1890), and to Fiji (1891), the latter trip
resulting in the production of a series of outstanding au-
totype enlargements of a fi re-walking ceremony. Some
of these were fi rst published as plates in the Transactions
of the R.G.S. (Lindt 1894, 45–58), but plans to produce
a volume along the lines of Picturesque New Guinea
were not realized due to the severe recession of the mid
1890s. One of his last ethnographic portfolios, of named
members of a touring Northern Australian Aboriginal
performing troupe, was produced in an indoor studio
setting in 1893.
Lindt closed his Melbourne studios and removed to
“The Hermitage,” at Black Spur, north-east from Mel-
bourne in 1894. Here he continued to produce works
of exceptional quality, such as Snow at the Hermitage
(c.1905) (State Library of Victoria), and kept up with
the latest international developments. He became a
role model for the rising generation of pictorialist
photographers. In 1924, a print of Lindt’s dramatic,
The Hermitage, Blacks’ Spur (c.1912) (State Library of
New South Wales), taken from one of the tree-houses in
“The Hermitage” garden, was given to Harold Cazneaux
(1878–1953), later recognized as one of Australia’s out-
standing pictorialists. In 1925 it was reported that Lindt
“continues to produce remarkable and most artistic pic-
tures of the beauties of mountain landscape. He is not a
believer in the blurred effects favored by many... instead
he is a master of detail” (The Argus, 19 March 1925).
Lindt died of heart failure, on Black Friday 19 February,
1926, at the height of severe bush-fi res which destroyed
much of the Blacks’ Spur Mountain Ash forest. “The
Hermitage” and a substantial body of his work survives,
most signifi cantly in the collections of the State Library
of Victoria, Melbourne. Other holdings include the State
Library of New South Wales, Sydney; National Gallery
of Australia, Canberra; National Library of Australia,
Canberra; Clarence River Historical Society, Grafton;
and Grafton Regional Gallery. Further global holdings
are listed in (Orchard 1999).
Ken OrchardBiography
John William Lindt was born 1 January 1845 in Frank-
furt-Main, Germany, the son of Peter Joseph Lindt, a