JOHN GLOVER and the COLONIAL PICTURESQUE

This exhibition traces the life and work of the Anglo-Australian painter John Glover (1767-1849).

Glover made important contributions both to the British art world of the early nineteenth century and to the early development of settler landscape art in Australia.

The earliest examples of what Tasmania looked like are found in coastal views observed and recorded on voyages of European maritime exploration, by Abel Tasman (1642), James Cook (1777) and Nicolas Baudin (1802). After settlement, these were followed by topographical drawings of the interior by explorers, surveyors and the occasional convict draughtsman, works designed for use by the colonial administrators both in Australia and Great Britain.

By the 1830s, increasing numbers of free settlers led to an increasingly affluent society, with growing cultural needs and aspirations. Some artists began to make a living from settler commissions – for family portraits or views of their properties – or from providing drawing tuition for their children. Most colonial artists continued to paint in the European style – not only from the habits of their original training, but probably also from a homesick longing to find the familiar in an unfamiliar land.

However, by the 1840s, John Glover had evolved new and innovative ways of seeing and painting the marvellous and incomparable Australian landscape, breaking to some extent with the classical tradition to give a more accurate and faithful representation of his new environment.

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