professional photographer, was a foundation member of the Council of the Photographic Society of Victoria formed at Melbourne in 1860. In 1860-62 Hewitt was in partnership with Charles Nettleton at 91 Bourke Street East then he apparently set up on his own, being listed as an independent photographer in the Melbourne Directory for 1865. At the 1866 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition Hewitt received an honourable mention for his fancy-dress portraits, presumably photographs of guests at the mayoral fancy-dress ball which opened the new Exhibition Building in September 1866. In 1867, like Patrick Dawson and Fred Kruger , Hewitt photographed the members of Australia’s first cricket team to tour England, the players all being Aborigines. Hewitt produced formal, individual portraits of the team posed in flannels, blazers and suits at his Melbourne studio. A few years later he photographed paintings by Thomas Lyttleton and Frederick Woodhouse to illustrate the third volume of The Victorian Stud-Book (Melbourne 1871).
Between 1867 and 1880 Hewitt worked at 95 Swanston Street, Melbourne, styling himself The Australasian Studio. He had a branch in the Royal Arcade in 1873. He ran Vita Studio at 77 Swanston Street from about 1886 until it was taken over by J. Beaumont in 1888. In 1892 Hewitt was at 202 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne but by 1899 had moved to Stawell, Victoria. Examples of his portrait cartes-de-visites are in the La Trobe Library.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
