San Francisco, from the Corner of Sacramento and Powell Streets.

Artist:

Albert Charles Cooke was a painter, engraver, draughtsman and illustrator. Throughout his career he worked for many of the Illustrated newspapers, such as the Illustrated Sydney News, Illustrated Australian News, The Australasian Sketcher and The Leader. He was also well known for a series of birds eye views of a number of Australian cities and towns. From the original edition of the Illustrated Sydney News. The Illustrated Sydney News, which was published from 1854 to 1889 and included a number of high quality engravings to illustrate the accompanying news and articles. It was issued on a monthly basis due to the time consuming process of having to engrave each illustration which would take one engraver between one and two weeks to make each one. Many famous Australian colonial artists and illustrators were employed in the making of them, such as Julian Ashton, Albert Cooke, Charles Conder, Samuel Calvert, Frank Mahony and Arthur Collingridge. The engravings provided a unique glimpse into colonial life, often depicting situations or scenes that were less than flattering, in contrast to the majority of sanctioned views that provided a sanitized portrayal of life in Australia. Increasingly expensive to produce, the few illustrated newspapers that made use of original engravings for their illustrations, and that survived the economic collapse of the late 1880’s found themselves competing against the new technology of photographic produced half-tone and lino type processes the illustrations. By the turn of the century most of the illustrated newspaper had closed. Due to their ephemeral nature few have survived.