Reverend Charles C. Kemp

Also known as Mr Charles Kemp
  • Artist (Photographer) , (Draughtsman)
Sketcher and amateur photographer, Kemp was an clergyman in the Anglican church who had received drawing lessons from Conrad Martens in 1847.
Talk | Version history | Updated Oct. 19, 2011 | Created Jan. 1, 1992
Name
Reverend Charles C. Kemp
Also known as Mr Charles Kemp
Gender
Male
Roles
  • Artist (Photographer)
  • Artist (Draughtsman)
Other Occupation
  • Clergyman
  • Teacher
Active Period
  • c.1847- c.1862
Languages
  • English
Training
  • c.1847 Conrad Martens
Is Indigenous
No
Initial Record Data Source
  • The Dictionary of Australian Artists: painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870

sketcher, amateur photographer, teacher and clergyman, is listed in Conrad Martens 's account book for July 1847 as having paid £7 for drawing lessons. In October Rev. Charles Kemp purchased a view of Sydney from Martens for 3 guineas and in December a view of Darling Point Road for 5 guineas. Like many Anglican clergymen, Kemp ran a boys’ school to supplement his stipend. A.B. Spark’s stepson Henry Radford was a senior boarder with him from September 1851 and for six months in 1852 Spark’s eldest son, Alick, also attended the school. Rev. Charles Kemp was experimenting with photography before 1858, by which time he had invented 'a very good apparatus for taking stereoscopic pictures’ reported a visiting English professional photographer, Frank Haes . Haes thought this 'the only novel contrivance invented in the colony worth recording’.

In 1862 Edmund Thomas 's drawing class at the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts was examined by F.C. Terry and 'Mr Kemp’. This may, however, have been Charles Kemp (1813-64), a local journalist, businessman and Anglican layman who also commissioned work from Martens.

Writers:
Staff Writer
Date written:
1992
Last updated:
2011
associate of
Conrad Martens
1801
Artist (Draughtsman), Artist (Printmaker), Artist (Painter)
associate of
Edmund Thomas
1827
Artist (Photographer), Artist (Printmaker), Artist (Painter)
associate of
Frederic Casemero Terry
1825
Artist (Printmaker), Artist (Cartoonist / Illustrator), Artist (Painter)
associate of
Frank Haes
1832
Artist (Photographer)
associate of
A. B. Spark
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
associate of
Henry Radford
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
Citations:
  • Martens, Conrad, Account Book, (Place: manuscript, Dixson Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW)
  • Haes, F., (1858), On photography in Australia, (Place: Journal of the Photographic Society, March, 22, London, England)
  • Abbott, G. and Little, G., (1976), The Respectable Sydney Merchant - A.B. Spark of Tempe, (Place: Sydney)