Falk Studios and RLS
By Design & Art Australia online
Returning
to Australia in 1885 H Walter Barnett 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).
A death in Samoa
In
the early evening of 3 December 1894, Stevenson died suddenly of a cerebral
haemorrhage. He was buried, as was his wish, on the top of Mount Vaea
overlooking Vailima, the harbour and town of Apia, and the Pacific Ocean to the
north.
To my dear friend
By RG Swearingen, ‘Robert Louis Stevenson in Australia: Treasures in the State Library of New South Wales’, 2013
H
Walter Barnett (1862–1934) was a well-respected portrait photographer in both
England and Australia. Barnett photographed Robert Louis Stevenson at his Falk
Studios in Sydney in March 1893 and produced eight or nine studio photographic
portraits. Barnett also knew Girolamo Nerli, having met him in Sydney and again
in London around 1910.
Face to face
By RG Swearingen, ‘Robert Louis Stevenson in Australia: Treasures in the State Library of New South Wales’, 2013
Image:
Falk Studios (Henry Walter
Barnett)
Robert Louise Stevenson,
March 1893
Photographic print
P1 / 1665
The
significance of the inscription (see Close-up) on Stevenson’s pencil portrait is that Nerli
used one of Barnett’s photographic portraits to aid his memory of Stevenson’s
visage from their time in Samoa. Placed side by side, the similarities between
Nerli’s pencil sketch and Barnett’s photographic portrait are apparent.
Quite the equal of John Singer Sargent
By RG Swearingen, ‘Robert Louis Stevenson in Australia: Treasures in the State Library of New South Wales’, 2013
The most memorable result of Nerli’s visit
to Samoa was an oil portrait of Stevenson that today is in the collection of
the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. It was not until late April 1895 – five
months after Stevenson’s death – that Nerli found a buyer for the painting. It
was reproduced for the first time in a New York magazine, the Cosmopolitan, in
July 1895. In the years that followed, Nerli found that versions of it were
increasingly in demand – not surprisingly, given its high quality and
Stevenson’s continuing popularity.
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