Item #100805 An original watercolour painting, possibly of a sparsely settled Adelaide seaside suburb; unsigned, but the artist is identified on the verso as H.P. Gill. Harry Pelling GILL.
GILL, Harry Pelling

An original watercolour painting, possibly of a sparsely settled Adelaide seaside suburb; unsigned, but the artist is identified on the verso as H.P. Gill

The watercolour on paper (135 × 227 mm) is unmounted; apart from a tiny light crease to one top corner, it is in fine condition. It is undated, but probably circa 1900. 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'). This charming painting - of coastal tea tree (or similar) flourishing prominently against a backdrop of a few substantial dwellings scattered along a line in the relatively featureless landscape - certainly satisfies these criteria.

Item #100805

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