Thomas Bock

Thomas Bock (1790-1855) was an English-Australian artist and an early adopter of photography in Australia. Born in England he was sentenced to transportation in 1823. After gaining his freedom, he set himself up as one of Australia's first professional artists and became well known for his portraits of colonists. As early as 1843 he began taking daguerreotypes in Hobart and became one of the earliest commercial photographers in Australia.

Bock was born in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England. In his early years he was a chorister at Lichfield Cathedral. Later Bock worked as an engraver alongside William Wyon, who later became an engraver for the British Mint. After finishing his apprenticeship, he moved to London and established himself as an engraver and miniature painter. In 1817 Bock was awarded the silver medal of the Society of Arts and Commerce for an engraving of a portrait.

In April 1823, Bock was found guilty at the Warwick Assizes of administering drugs to a young woman (his mistress, whose foetus he wished to abort) and sentenced to transportation to Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania), arriving in January 1824 aboard the Asia. He was set to work preparing plates for banknotes, and then to official assignments making portraits of recently executed criminals, and he engraved the plates for the 1829, 1830 and 1835 Hobart Town Almanack, published by Dr James Ross.

After he was freed, Bock set himself up as one of Australia's first professional artists and became well known for his portraits of colonists. He was also commissioned by Lady Jane Franklin, wife of Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin (at the time, the Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land), to paint the portraits of some Tasmanian Aborigines. In 1843 Bock visited Sydney but returned to exhibit at the first major art exhibition, which was held in Hobart in 1845.

Bock painted in oils, watercolour, and crayons as well as working as one of Australia's first photographers. According to Henry Allport, a close contemporary of Bock's, it was his crayon works that produced the happiest results, as it was in this medium that he best captured the character of the sitter.

As early as October 1843 Bock was taking daguerreotypes in Hobart even though the licence to use the process in Australia was at this time held by George Baron Goodman. It seems that Bock acquired a camera and associated apparatus and was producing portraits which, along with Goodman's, were among the earliest taken in Australia. Bock clearly maintained his interest in photography as in 1849 he was advertising that he had completed his arrangements for taking portrait daguerreotypes from his studio at 22 Campbell Street.

On 18 March 1855 Thomas Bock died aged 65. He did not die a wealthy man as on 1 May 1855, an exhibition of his paintings and drawings was opened at R.L. Hood's Exhibition Room in Hobart in an effort to raise money for his widow and family.

Bock was one of the exhibitors at the first major art exhibition, in Hobart. His official work produced private commissions, and by the time of his death in Hobart, Tasmania, he was a successful portraitist specialising in miniatures. Bock was one of the most highly skilled of the early convict artists. Much of his apparently voluminous output remains lost, or at least unidentified, but he can be credited with two Australian "firsts": he left behind a small body of nude studies, rare in early colonial art; and he was one of the first in the colonies to experiment with daguerreotype photography.