Girl with apples

Frederick Joyner was one of Adelaide’s leading amateur Pictorialist photographers, Pictorialism being a style which often used a soft focus and romanticised subject matter to create a painterly aesthetic. One strand of Pictorialism involved narrative figure compositions, generally with rustic or sentimental overtones. From 1898 Joyner photographed figures in landscape and domestic settings, usually engaged in work. After he moved to Bridgewater in the Adelaide Hills in 1906, local farm workers, often gathering fruit or flowers, became Joyner’s models.

Also a solicitor, Joyner was an influential member of the South Australian Photographic Society and a regular contributor to many competitive exhibitions in Australia and overseas. His photographs were informed by contemporary photographic theories and an understanding of European art styles. Joyner made a number of evocative photographic studies of this young subject.

Alice Clanachan, Assistant Curator, Prints, Drawings & Photographs