Frank Hurley starts out
Tuesday 21 December 2021
The adventurous photographer and cinematographer Frank Hurley—who went to Antarctica with Mawson (1911–1914) and Shackleton (1914–1916), then to Palestine and Flanders with the AIF in the Great War, and to the wilds of Papua in the 1920s—started his photography career in the postcard trade.
I am pleased to have acquired an example of Hurley’s early work, which shows a structure I am very familiar with—the lighthouse at Nobby’s Head. This lighthouse, which was first lit in 1858, was one of the 58 historic lighthouses I surveyed in 2006–2007.
Hurley’s postcard photograph of the Nobby’s Head lighthouse at the entrance to the Hunter River at Newcastle. This was the shortest of a series of three stone lighthouses built around 1857 by the New South Wales colonial government—the tallest is at Cape Moreton on Moreton Island, and the middle-sized one is the Hornby lighthouse at the entrance to Sydney Harbour. All three are still active lighthouses.
The back of the postcard.
Paul Costigan has published some notes about Hurley’s early postcards, with examples. His examples include a distant view of Nobby’s Head, with the lighthouse visible.