Because Mulock's sister Dinah was a famous author who has lately become a feminist icon, some information about Ben's life has been published in relation to her, particularly in Sally Mitchell's Dinah Mulock Craik. Mitchell describes Ben as a flighty, even inconsiderate brother who took off for Australia as soon as he could get his hands on his inheritance, abandoning his sister at a time when women needed male protection. His work as a photographer is presented as a hobby or flight of fancy: "Ben drifted back from Australia, having given up engineering for photography. It is impossible to penetrate sufficiently between the lines of Victorian reticence to discover whether his difficulty was drink, opium, or mental instability..." [1]
Monday, June 13, 2005
Mrs. Dinah Craik, née Mulock
Because Mulock's sister Dinah was a famous author who has lately become a feminist icon, some information about Ben's life has been published in relation to her, particularly in Sally Mitchell's Dinah Mulock Craik. Mitchell describes Ben as a flighty, even inconsiderate brother who took off for Australia as soon as he could get his hands on his inheritance, abandoning his sister at a time when women needed male protection. His work as a photographer is presented as a hobby or flight of fancy: "Ben drifted back from Australia, having given up engineering for photography. It is impossible to penetrate sufficiently between the lines of Victorian reticence to discover whether his difficulty was drink, opium, or mental instability..." [1]
Sunday, June 12, 2005
About Benjamin Mulock
Benjamin Mulock is acclaimed in Brazil as one of the finest landscape photographers of the 19th century. He was in Bahia from November 1, 1859 until April 1852, photographing the works of the Bahia & São Francisco Railway Company. In 1860, he presented Emperor Pedro II with an album of his photographs of the city of Salvador - then called Bahia. Those photos are now housed in Brazil's National Library in Rio de Janeiro, and for many years, they were believed to be the only existing examples of Mulock's work.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
About this Project
As part of a project being organized by Ubaldo Senna, Erika Aragão and Luiz Guilherme Dias Tavares in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, I am researching a biography of the 19th-century British photographer Benjamin Robert Mulock (1829-1863). This blog will report the progress of the research so far. If you have any information about Mulock, particularly the whereabouts of his photographs of Bahia in collections outside Brazil, please send me an email or contact Erika Aragão.
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