'Windsor Castle from Eton Meadows'. An original watercolour painting, captioned (twice, once indistinctly), signed and dated in pencil ('H.P. Gill 07')
The watercolour on paper (140 × 225 mm) is mounted, once framed but now removed, with traces of an old mat visible on the margins of the artwork. The painting is in excellent condition, and it would be an ideal candidate for reframing. Harry Pelling Gill (1855-1916), art curator and teacher, was born in England; he trained and taught at the Royal College of Art from 1877-82. He was then appointed master of the school of design in Adelaide. 'He arrived in Adelaide in September and organized elementary and advanced classes, instruction in crafts, teaching of drawing and correspondence lessons. He also gave instruction to trainee teachers.... In 1889 Gill became director for technical art ... He published books on geometrical drawing and design ... In 1892 he was appointed honorary curator of the art gallery and, following the resignation in December of Louis Tannert as master of the school of painting, Gill assumed control of all the board's art teaching activities.... Gill had shown promise as an artist and hoped to win repute in Australia. However, teaching and administration had left little time for his painting. His rare decorative and aesthetic compositions, and also his landscapes, are painted with meticulous detail without sacrificing the overall unified effect. This is a quality passed on to some of his students, including the Hambidge sisters and Gustave Barnes in his early work. Gill's landscapes and some of his interiors show that he was interested in the accurate rendering of light - a rare quality in Adelaide before 1900' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography'). Gill travelled to England and Europe in 1899, and he went to New Zealand in early 1907. However, he appears not to have visited England the year he produced this watercolour of Windsor Castle.
Item #100632
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