professional photographer, lithographer and printer, claimed to have 'the oldest established [photographic] studio’ at Melbourne in 1858. On 8 September his sensational advertisement was published in the Melbourne Argus : 'J. Noone, 9 Collins St. W. With a view to giving the utmost publicity to his Photographic Establishment, has made arrangements with the Proprietor of the Township of Talbot for distribution of 700 ALLOTMENTS therein to all persons who shall have portraits taken at his establishment during the ensuing two months. Portrait + allotment of land for 1 guinea’. Although indicative of the publicity then needed to counter the increasingly competitive photographic studios in Melbourne, this was not perhaps quite as generous as it seemed. The allotment system (still current in parts of Britain) allowed applicants to cultivate a tiny plot of land and, at most, erect a garden shed on it; if not utilised appropriately the plot would be reallocated, and Talbot was hardly the metropolis. Nevertheless, whatever the conditions, Noone’s offer proved so popular that all available allotments were claimed within a few weeks.
From 1858 to 1862 Noone continued to advertise as an artist and photographer of Collins Street. Most appositely, he was subsequently employed as a photographer in the Victorian Crown Lands Office (1866-88), showing photolithographed maps and plans he had executed for the department in the 1866 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition. He was also the official photographer for the Melbourne Public Library and Museum. At the 1869 Melbourne Public Library Exhibition, held at the Library, he exhibited 42 photographs from its Dresden Gallery collection which he had taken in the course of his employment, together with five photolithographs 'after Albert [sic] Durer’. The Public Library and Gallery trustees exhibited a further 12 of his Durer photolithographs, published as The Albert Durer Album (Melbourne 1869), and sent two of them to the 1873 London International Exhibition. Noone himself showed 12 photographs of Melbourne.
Photolithography was a Melbourne speciality, having been invented there in August 1859 by John Walter Osborne . On 27 September 1870 the Sydney Morning Herald noted that 'beautiful specimens’ had been included in the Victorian court at the Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition, 'exhibited by Mr John Noone, who now carries on Osborne’s process’. His 42 photolithographs of wood-engravings (the Dresden Gallery collection again) and two unnamed specimens (presumably the Durers) were together awarded a bronze medal. Other photolithographs he produced at the Crown Lands Office included James Meek 's Chronological Tree of the History of Victoria .
Noone is also known for his photographs of early Melbourne (La Trobe Library), including a series of views of the city and its major buildings taken in December 1869 from the tower of Dr Fitzgerald’s residence in Lonsdale Street West for presentation to the officers of HM Flying Squadron, 'by order of the Hon. James McKean, Commissioner of Crown Lands & Survey, and President of the Board of Land and Works’. In the photography section of the 1870 Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition he showed seven views of Melbourne which were commended by the jury. Others appeared in later exhibitions in London and Sydney as well as Melbourne.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
