"They are unlike any mugshots that you see anywhere else in the world – and we have looked."
Sydney Living Museums curator Nerida Campbell says mugshots reproduced from glass negatives for the travelling exhibition Underworld: Mugshots from the Roaring Twenties are candid and compelling.
More than 100 mugshots are included in the exhibition at the Albury Library Museum in regional New South Wales.
Ms Campbell said the photos were taken of suspects by NSW police between 1920 and 1930.
"There are about 130,000 negatives held at the Justice and Police Museum in Sydney and these are images taken by officers in the course of their inquiries," she said.
"The images were taken so that police could show them to witnesses from a crime without making them aware that this person was in police custody."
Ms Campbell said the suspects brought their own personality and character to the images.
"Some are staring right down the camera trying to intimidate the police officer taking the photo and some of the women are flirting," she said.
"People are smoking cigarettes, holding handbags and holding conversations."
Ms Campbell said the 1920s were a time of great change in the criminal underworld in NSW.
"We begin to see cocaine being sold and bought during that period," she said.
"Before that there were not as many cars on the roads, but in the 1920s we see the rise of the 'teenage joy-rider' — young men who just couldn't resist the lure of those shiny fast cars.
"They would steal them, but many of them hadn't driven a car — they hadn't even seen their parents drive a car.
"You can imagine the kinds of mayhem we were seeing on the streets of towns and in cities in that period."
Mafia bosses to petty crims all feature in the mugshots.
"In the images you will see everything from those stone-cold gangsters … through to teenagers who made one dumb mistake and ended up in police custody."
Ms Campbell said some stories behind the images were a mystery, but many were known.
"There is one picture that I find compelling — she is a 19-year-old named Edna Lindsay, dressed as a beautiful flapper, and you can see the tears in her eyes.
"She had been led astray by her boyfriend and had stolen a cheque from her employer and got caught.
"When you look at that image you can see the dark circles under her eyes and the tears making her eyes glisten, you just don't see that in modern mugshots to that degree."
Ms Campbell said a 1920s police photographer would have needed a good relationship with the person being photographed, as they had to maintain a pose for a few seconds for a clear image to be captured.
"He had to be able to get them to go along with what he needed," she said.
She said the 1920s NSW police officer who took the mugshots had remarkable photographic skills.
"We believe the police photographer was George Howard," Ms Campbell said.
"He would have to deal with natural light, glass-plate negatives and processing them.
"It was a very different skill to today."
Underworld: Mugshots from the Roaring Twenties is on at the Albury Library Museum until October 30.
