Bernice Agar (1885-1976)

Background

In 1918 Bernice Agar moved from Toowoomba in Queensland and established her own studio in Denison House 380 George Street, Sydney. She had a distinctive and striking style of portraiture which employed strong frontal lighting and arranged photographic elements with geometrical precision. Bernice also produced some of the most exotic portrait studies in the magazines of the day, particularly Ure Smith’s prestigious Home.

She employed her sister as a retoucher in her studio and the images of Myrtle Govers in the Macleay Collection are all lightly retouched. She married accountant James Hardie in 1929 and followed the trend of many other women photographers and once married gave up her commercial work. The Macleay Museum collection has only these two prints of her work.