John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque
24 Apr – 18 Jul 2004
John Glover Mount Wellington and Hobart town from Kangaroo Point, 1831–33, purchased with funds from the Nerissa Johnson Bequest 2001
About
John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque is a major exhibition featuring 100 paintings, watercolours, drawings and sketches of Regency Britain and colonial Tasmania by John Glover that includes some of the earliest oil paintings of the Australian landscape.
The son of a Leicestershire farmer, John Glover achieved success as an artist in Britain from the 1790 to 1820 creating images with poetic appeal of the mountains and lakes of Europe. At the age of 63, he migrated with his wife and elder son to Van Diemen’s Land to join his three younger sons who had settled in the new colony.
Glover was immediately struck by the vast beauty and the striking sunlight of the region. He unleashed his new-found inspiration with deliberate care and relentless attention to detail, creating images of the Tasmanian landscape and of the Aboriginal people that inhabited this ancient land.
In the last twenty years Glover’s art has been reassessed as giving us a strong insight into our colonial beginnings. This exhibition is the largest collection of Glover’s works ever assembled.
David Hansen, Senior Curator at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery has dedicated six years to passionate research of Glover’s work and life, retracing the artist steps through the fields and paddocks that Glover would have painted.
David Hansen said ‘I am delighted the exhibition is coming to the National Gallery of Australia. Not only does the NGA hold a superb collection of early 19th-century paintings and drawings, but over the years its curators have contributed substantially to the re-evaluation of many colonial artists, Glover included.’
A major catalogue, accompanying the exhibition, features essays by David Hansen, John McPhee, Ian McLean, Erica Burgess, Max Staples and Roger Butler.
Organised by:
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
Art Exhibitions Australia
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