Ballarat-born inventor Henry Sutton would have been 161 on September 4.
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The polymath genius had, among his many interests, the fledgling art of photography and the printing process for reproducing images.
It may not be known that Sutton was a patent holder for a series of successful processes of ‘electro-photypy’ (phototype production) by which images could be reproduced in books and magazines.
The system used a version of electrolysis to move negatives onto metal plates for printing. Sutton’s Process Syndicate Limited was soon being used across the world.
You can learn more about this process and see images created by Henry at a new exhibition at the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute running as part of the 2017 Ballarat Foto Biennale.
The exhibition is an opportunity to visit the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute library and heritage reading room and explore the layers and stories of Ballarat through imagery from the Max Harris Photography Collection of historic images, and contemporary artistic responses from Ellen Sorensen and Wadawurrung custodian Barry Gilson.
The exhibition also sees the Henry Sutton story on display, along with a series of his 1890s photographs exhibited for the first time, taken with his self-invented photographic process. Other items on display include his stereoscopic viewer and stereoscopic images, a Kromscop projector owned by Sutton, and from the BMI collection, library catalogues from the 1860s showing the books Sutton might have been read when he devoured the Mechanic’s Institute library in his early years.
BMI curator Amy Tsilemanis will be hosting two free talk events in the library over the next two Thursdays.
On Thursday September 7 she will be in discussion with artists Sorensen and Gilson about their practice and how they have responded creatively to the exhibition. Barry Gilson will speak about his work reviving local Indigenous language through song.
Thursday September 14 will be with Lorayne Branch, Henry Sutton’s descendant, author and researcher.
The lectures are at 5.30pm for 6pm in the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute library.