Keast Burke photographs, negatives, slides and realia, 1860s-1970s

PXE 1603
PXD 1385
ON 564
ON 565
SLIDES 286
R 2133

fonds

1860s-1970s

Graphic Materials, Objects, Photographs

1063798

28 negatives - glass - 16.5 x 21.5 cm and smaller
Approximately 550 negatives
100 slides - colour and black & white:
2 medals - bronze - 6 x 9 cm and smaller
Approximately 150 photographic prints - 35.5 x 118 cm and smaller

Eric Keast Burke, photographer and journalist, was born in 1896 at Christchurch, New Zealand. In 1904 his family moved to Sydney where he was educated at Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore). In 1917 he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force serving as a sapper with the Anzac Wireless Squadron, Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force.
After the war he became associate-editor of the Australasian Photo-Review. He married Iris Lily Daniell in 1925 and in 1927 edited his army unit's history 'With Horse and Morse in Mesopotamia'. In 1932 he published 'Achievement', a photographic study of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. He exhibited his work in Australia, Europe, London and the United States of America. In 1938 he was appointed Australian chairman of Kodak International salons of photography. During World War II he served as a captain in the Volunteer Defence Corps in intelligence. He was later was employed as Kodak's advertising manager.
In 1953 he found Otto Holtermann's collection of Beaufoy Merlin's and Charles Bayliss's glass plates of the gold fields in 'a small suburban backyard shed'. In 1973 he published, 'Gold and Silver: photographs of Australian goldfields from the Holtermann Collection’. He also lectured on the collection, prepared exhibitions and presented a television series.
Following his retirement in 1960, Burke was editor and art director of Australian Popular Photography until 1969. He was a member of the Book Collectors' Society of Australia, and in 1963 founded the short-lived Australian Documentary Facsimile Society. He died in 1974.

Reference:
Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 13, 1993.

I. PHOTOGRAPHS
PXE 1603/1
Portraits of Keast Burke & portrait groups including Keast Burke.
Scenes in Mesopotamia during World War I.
Photographs used to illustrate ‘Gold and Silver’.
Portfolio of photographs by Iris Burke. Includes: Two children; Belmont; Farm with Hyacinth; Hunter River Valley; Mallanganee; The Barn; Forster; Karuah River.
Untitled landscape by James Stenning of the Sydney Camera Circle.
Departure of Troops for the Sudan by Charles Bayliss.

PXE 1603/2
Various portraits and group portraits including: Charles Bennett; Ada Beatrice Bennett; Members of the Ladies Leichhardt Search Expedition, Swan Hill, 1865; Joseph Joachim; Daintree Aboriginal people; group of photographers near Canberra including Albert Perier, possibly by Monte Luke.
Miscellaneous photographs (mostly untitled) including: Mitchell’s Corner; Fitzroy Bar, Ophir; Market Street, Goulburn; 19th century Sydney street scenes; Mount Gilead.

PXD 1385
Two panoramas of Tennis Courts and Players at Rushcutters Bay by Charles Kerry.

II. GLASS NEGATIVES
ON 564
Keast Burke in Mesopotamia, World War I.
Mesopotamia negatives sent to the Australian War Memorial
Copy negatives (perhaps for ‘With Horse and Morse’) of paintings of Mesopotamia by John Moore and F.L. McFarlane.
The Wireless Squadron, Mesopotamia.

III. FILM NEGATIVES
ON 565
Portraits of Keast Burke.
The Mesopotamian campaign.
Easter at Singing Water, 1932.
Mount Gilead.
Norman Lindsay.
Panorama taken by Keast Burke from Holtermann Tower at SCEG School (Shore); Tower House at the school; Cricket at the school; Home of James Blackwood at Pennant Hills/Wahroonga.
Negatives by Monte Luke relating to selection of Canberra as the federal capital.
West side of George Street, Sydney from King Street.
Rouse Hill House.
Untitled. Includes groups of photographers and a dam.
Series of negatives taken 1935-1936 (many untitled). Include: Killara Park sports; Bowral and Mena Reef; Weekend at Long Reef and Narrabeen; Woy Woy trip; Mr Liddell & his daughter; Dee Why excursion; Curl Curl; Vollenda; Dee Why and Cowan trip.

IV. SLIDES
SLIDES 286
Cundletown.
‘A Keast Burke Soliloquy’.
‘To Camden Haven with Henry Kendall’, (lecture slides).
‘Slides of old black & white photographs probably Sydney & Holtermann collection’.

V. REALIA
R 2133
Item 1. Medal of the Melbourne Camera Club International Exhibition, 1958, awarded to Keast Burke.
Item 2. Specimen medal designed by Keast Burke.

Forms part of Keast Burke further papers, 1861-1987, 2007 at MLMSS 9162

Access via appointment - Applies to ON 564, ON 565, SLIDES 286 and R 2133

Copyright restrictions may apply: Photographs in this collection created before 1955 are all out of copyright. Photographs created after 1955 are in copyright for the life of creator plus 70 years.
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy copyright holder

Information updated as part of the Unprocessed Pictures eRecords Project, 2013-2014