professional photographer and miner, was working as a miner in Ballarat, Victoria, until he met William Ellis in 1854 and became a partner in his photographic business. By 1857 Smith was running the Ballarat studio on his own. In 1863 he exhibited portraits at the Ballarat Mechanics Institute 'coloured in a new style’ and three years later showed a photographic panorama of Ballarat taken from the tower of the Eastern Fire Brigade station at the Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition. He bought out Saul Solomon in 1867, thus acquiring Solomon’s reputed collection of 17,000 glass plate negatives.
Smith and his brother produced 'Photographs of our Village’, a series of local views which they displayed at the Ballarat Mechanics Institute Exhibition in 1869. Their titles proclaim a less celebratory topographical approach to the town than was normal at the time: The Aged and the Maimed , An Old Colonist’s (the Artist’s) Retreat , At Work or Play? , The Politicians , The Conference , Giving It an Edge and The Sculptor’s Studio . At this exhibition Smith Brothers also exhibited photographs of Scottish scenery. A.V. Smith alone showed 'Two Frames [of] Colored Portraits’. He continued working as a photographer at Ballarat until his death in 1874. The La Trobe Library holds forty-one of the Smith’s photographs of Ballarat and its environs.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
