British landscapes at the Library courtesy Alfred Winter 1874

Alfred Winter was a Melbourne photographer who moved to Hobart Tasmania in 1869 and maintained a successful practice in studio portraiture and landscapes. On Sundays and holidays he travelled to beauty spots around Hobart with his apprentice Frank Miller, that is, until Miller came under suspicion of thieving from his master, and although arrested, the charge was dismissed for lack of evidence (The Mercury 19 October 1877).

Landscapes were Winter’s speciality. He gained a commission with the Hobart Municipal Council’s Land and Works Office in the mid-1870s, but he may have had a yearning to paint. In August 1874 he took the trouble to place on views his three oil paintings by British landscape artists in the reading room of the Public Library, housed upstairs in the Hobart Town Hall.

The first painting (below) by British landscape artist William Shayer was possibly the view mentioned in The Mercury article, 17 August 1874. The second painting is an example only of the other artist’s work, Henry G. Duguid.

WILLIAM SHAYER

Courtesy The Athenaeum
Cattle By A Stream
William Shayer Snr – No dates listed
Private collection
Painting – oil on canvas
Height: 60 cm (23.62 in.), Width: 51 cm (20.08 in.)

William Shayer Biography

The name of William Shayer has been linked with Morland, Ibbeston and Wheatley, all great English landscape painters of the 18th century. In his own right, Shayer is one of our first-class rural artists, with a delightful style and composition entirely his own, and completely free from imitation. He is at his best depicting the rural life of Hampshire and the New Forest; the countrymen and women going about their daily tasks, or resting in the shade of leafy boughs, faces shaded by big rustic hats; stopping at the inn on their return from market, or urging on teams of horses hauling timber.

His pictures express the great love and sympathy he had for the countryside and its people, and his wonderful sense of draughtsmanship and the perfect balance of his palette enabled him to reproduce the very spirit of what he observed – the translucence of reflected light, the sandy bank and filtered sunlight of the forest lanes.

Although he did not exhibit until well into his thirties, his work achieved considerable success and much praise from the art critics of his day. He did exhibit over two hundred paintings in his lifetime, and showed at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, the Society of British Artists and Suffolk Street. He sometimes painted with E C Williams, the one painting the landscape and the other painting the figures.

His paintings have always been highly sought after and today his work is valued for its accurate representation of rural life in the first three-quarters of the 19th century.

His works can be found in many galleries, museums and private collections throughout the world, including The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Montreal; Glasgow and Leicester

Selected Exhibitions 1825 – 1870
Shayer showed over 330 works at the Royal Society of British Artists and 80 at the British Institution.
He exhibited also at the Royal Academy and at the British Institution of London. His works have been displayed in museums in Glasgow, Leicester, London, Montreal, and Sunderland.

HENRY DUGUID

Courtesy Artnet
Henry G. Duguid
Linlithgow Palace and Chapel, from the south, looking toward the River Forth and Ochil Hill
Oil on Canvas
20 x 30.1 in. / 50.8 x 76.5 cm.
Signed, Inscribed
Sale Of Christie’s East: Wednesday, February 26, 1997
[Lot 291]
Old Master and 19th Century European Paintings

THE MERCURY, 17 AUGUST 1874

Alfred Winter’s exhibition of British landscape artists,
William Shayer and Henry Duguid at the Public Library.
The Mercury 17 August 1874.

TRANSCRIPT

PICTURES IN THE PUBLIC LIBRARY. - There are now on view in the reading room of the Public Library, three oil paintings, the property of Mr Alfred Winter, photographer, of Elizabeth-street, who has placed them there for the inspection of the public. The gem of the three is “Cattle drinking at the Stream” by W. Shayer. The others are larger, and as landscapes they unquestionably occupy a high place. They are both by the same artist. H. G. Duguid, the one being “Nidpath Castle, Peebles in the distance on the Tweed” and the other “Landing Place, Stirling, Anchel Hills and Cambuskenneth Abbey.” All the paintings have attracted much attention, and connoisseurs agree, we believe, as to their being very excellent works of art.

ALFRED WINTER PANORAMA

Courtesy State Library of Tasmania
Title: Photograph – Panorama of Hobart, in four conjoined parts, taken from the Glebe.
Alfred Winter photographer
Description: 1 photographic print
Format: Photograph
ADRI: NS2960-1-2
Source: Archives Office of Tasmania
Series: Panoramas of Hobart, 1856 – 1905 (NS2960)
Notes: Four panoramas of Hobart that were in the custody of the Hobart Bellringers and stored in the Bell Tower of the former Holy Trinity Anglican Church in North Hobart. It is believed that the photographs were acquired by the Bellringers around the time each of the photographs were taken. 1870

Haughton Forrest

This large format book on artist Captain Haughton Forrest retails for around AUD $250 second-hand  (Sydney).

Above: Detail of painting by Haughton Forrest of the Cascade Brewery and Mt Wellington, 1880s
Below: photographic vignette self-portrait, 1880s

Photos © Sidonie Seida 2007

Book details:
Author: Brown, George Deas, 1922-
Title: Haughton Forrest, 1826-1925 / George Deas Brown.
Publisher: North Caulfield, Vic. : Malakoff Fine Art Press, 1982.
Description: 183 p. : ill. (some col.), ports. ; 38 cm.
ISBN: 0959274308

Australian Dictionary of Biography
FORREST, HAUGHTON (1826-1925), artist, was born on 30 December 1826 at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, youngest son of Thomas Arthur Forrest, equerry to Queen Victoria, and his wife Mary Lowther, both parents being of distinguished family. Forced to flee to Jersey, England, on the commencement of the French revolution in 1830, the Forrests later travelled throughout France and Germany before returning to their country home Forest Lodge in Berkshire. Young Haughton was subsequently educated in Jamaica, where his father had extensive sugar plantations, and at a military college at Wiesbaden, Germany. In 1852 he obtained a commission in the Honourable Artillery Company of London; he later joined the 31st Royal Monmouth Light Infantry, but resigned after attaining the rank of captain to work for the Post Office in London. On 30 September 1858 at the Plymouth parish church, Devon, he married a widow, Susan Henrietta Bunce, née Somerville (d.1893). Their early married life was spent on the Isles of Wight and Man and in southern England where Forrest spent much time yachting and painting marine subjects, some of which were reputedly commissioned by the Prince of Wales (King Edward VII).

In 1875 Forrest took up a grant of sixty acres (24 ha) in Kittoland, Parana, southern Brazil, but finding conditions unsuitable returned to London. Next year he migrated with his family in the James MacDuff to take advantage of a grant of 100 acres (40 ha) in north-eastern Tasmania. Later he moved to Sorell where he obtained municipal appointments as bailiff of crown lands and of the court of general sessions, inspector of nuisances, of weights and measures, of thistles and of stock. He was also superintendent of police. All these positions he relinquished in March 1881 when he moved to Wellington Hamlets, near Hobart. In 1889-90 he was chairman of the Wellesley Road Trust.

Forrest spent the rest of his life after 1881 fully devoted to his art, painting many fine marine subjects and landscapes. His output, which spanned some seventy years, was prolific, and varied from small oils, painted on board, to large canvases. The marine paintings were usually of stormy scenes in which the vessels were meticulously detailed and the foam-crested breakers remarkably green and translucent. By contrast, his landscapes were peaceful, with mystical backgrounds of hazy blue or purple mountains. In 1899 Forrest’s views of Mount Wellington and Hobart, in conjunction with the photographs of J. W. Beattie, formed the first set of pictorial stamps produced in Australia. He is also known to have painted New Zealand scenes, an occasional still life, a hunting scene and a brood of chickens. The extreme detail and exactitude of Forrest’s technique gave his works a photographic quality which, in earlier years, some art critics strongly deprecated. It is only recently that there has been a strong demand for his paintings.

Forrest died on 20 January 1925 at Melton Mowbray, leaving only a modest estate and survived by two daughters and one of his two sons. Many of his paintings hang in Tasmanian and other Australian art galleries. A self-portrait, in military uniform, under-taken in his early years, is in a private collection in Hobart.

Select Bibliography
University of Tasmania Fine Arts Committee, Captain Haughton Forrest, exhibition catalogue (Tas, 1976);
Hobart Town Gazette, 25 June, 23 July 1877, 28 May 1879, 15, 29 Mar 1881; Art and Australia, 14 (Spring 1976), no 2;
Mercury (Hobart), 21 Jan 1925;
Argus (Melbourne), 22 Jan 1925;
Australasian (Melbourne), 24 Jan 1925; Canberra Times, 17 Jan 1974.
More on the resources
Author: G. R. Garrott
Print Publication Details: G. R. Garrott, ‘Forrest, Haughton (1826 – 1925)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 8, Melbourne University Press, 1981, pp 543-544.