Design and Art Australia Online

professional photographer, was born in St Kilda, Melbourne on 25 January 1862, one of the six children of English Jews Lewis Barnett (Eliezer ben Baruch) and Alice Jacobs. In 1875, aged 13, he left school and joined Melbourne’s leading photographic studio Stewart & Co, where he met Tom Roberts when he joined the firm in 1877. Barnett claimed to have enabled Roberts to made his first ever sale of a painting (in 1881) and he himself purchased Holiday Sketch at Coogee (1888, Art Gallery of New South Wales) as soon as Roberts had painted it. He also bought Arthur Streeton 's The Three Liners, Circular Quay in 1893 (now National Gallery of Australia).

In 1880 Barnett moved to Hobart and set up his first commercial studio, jointly owned with Harold (Herbert?) Riise. After two years he sold out to Riise and travelled the world, working for leading photographers in San Francisco (I.W. Taber), Chicago (Joseph W. Gehrig), New York (various, perhaps including Falk whose name and logo he used in Sydney) and London (W & D Downey). Returning to Australia in 1885 he set up Falk Studios in the Royal Arcade, 496 George Street, Sydney, which became the leading celebrity studio in the city specialising in portraits of local and visiting theatrical stars, including Mrs Brown Potter (1890) – his first commercial success – Sarah Bernhardt (whom he paid 100 gns for the exclusive rights to photograph her in Australia in 1891 & whom he rephotographed in old age at London in 1910) and local star actress Nellie Stewart, as well as famous visitors like Robert Louis Stevenson (on his fourth and last trip to Sydney in 1893) and Mark Twain (on his world lecture tour in 1895 – and at London in 1899, 1902 & 1907). He married Ella Forbes in Sydney on 18 July 1889. The couple soon became known for lavish entertainments at their home in Middle Street, Lavender Bay.

In 1895 Barnett opened a studio in Melbourne managed by his sister Phoebe (born 1867) and brother Charles – mainly the former. In November 1896 Barnett produced a film of the Melbourne Cup, considered one of the earliest, if not the first, newsreels ever made. He revisited London in 1896 and possibly decided to open there then. He exhibited some of his best Sydney photographs with the Royal Photographic Society and was awarded its annual medal. Returning with his wife in March 1897, he took over the studio of John Edwards at 1 Park Side, Knightsbridge, which he totally refurbished. After returning to put J. Brooks Thornley in charge of the Sydney Falk Studios, he settled permanently in London in 1898, establishing a highly successful studio under his own name, 'H. Walter Barnett’. Five years later, in January 1904, he published a brochure entitled 'A List of Well Known People Photographed by H. Walter Barnett’, which contained 610 famous names. By then, he had taken a partner into the business, Ethel Arnold (1866-1930), niece of Matthew Arnold and sister of the novelist Mrs Humphrey Ward.

Barnett also took portraits of Australian artist friends in London, including Roberts, Conder , Streeton (who said he 'made better portraits than any living painter in his age’), Phil May , James Quinn and John Longstaff . He photographed Auguste Rodin and the painter Jacques-Emile Blanche when they were in London in 1904 (and later). His portrait of A. H. Fullwood taken in London c.1915 was included in Helen Ennis’s Mirror with a memory (Canberra, National Portrait Gallery [NPG], 2000).

During the Great War, Barnett photographed officers, publishing 'Officers On the Active Lists of His Majesty’s Army and Navy Photographed by H. Walter Barnet’ containing over 100 names. In 1917 he held an exhibition, Warriors All: Exhibition of Portraits of Officers of the British, Overseas and Allied Forces and Ladies Engaged in War Work . After the war he and his wife spent part of the year in France, mostly Dieppe, and on the Italian Riviera. In 1920 he sold his London studio to Oscar Hardee and moved his home and studio to Dieppe, where he photographed the ageing David Davies , Walter Sickert and Lillie Roberts (Tom’s wife) as well as the town’s working men (a series exhibited in his studio in 1921).

In 1920 he began amassing a major collection of contemporary French art, which he took to Melbourne in 1927 and exhibited in W.H. Gill’s Fine Art Society Gallery in Exhibition Street. The reception was tepid. Some were shown again by Gill when Barnett made a final visit in 1930, while others were returned to be exhibited in London later that year. His 50-year friendship with Roberts was shattered during the 1927 trip and never repaired. He also fell out with the National Gallery of Victoria. When Barnett died in Nice on 16 January 1934, his passing went unnoticed in Australia. Ella burned his correspondence.

Photographs are held at the National Portrait Gallery (London) and in Europe and the USA as well as in Australian public collections. His best-known photographs in Australia are of the ageing Henry Parkes (1892). Neill believes that 'Barnett was arguably Australia’s first world-class portrait photographer’ (p.9). His protégé, Jack Cato , whom Barnett employed for nine months from 1909, wrote the first record of his life and works. A major exhibition curated by Roger Neill, Legends: The Art of Walter Barnett , was at the State Library of New South Wales in December 2000 then at the NPG, Canberra (the organising gallery).

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1999

Last updated:

2011