Drawings of Melbourne and Geelong 1856-1864 by Joseph Masters
These excellent and historically valuable sketches of Geelong from the 1850s and 1860s are the work of Joseph Masters. The artist was an amateur, although he did gain some recognition in his lifetime. Sadly his death at forty robbed both his family and our community of an amazing talent.
The existence of the collection come to my attention serendipitously. Geoff Hall contacted the society offering us an artefact that commemorated the work of Telecom workers during the Ash Wednesday Fires of 1983. He subsequently wrote an article about their work which is also published on our site.
Once he had looked at the website he drew my attention to the work of his great great grandfather whom he modestly described as “a mildly accomplished artist, especially in watercolour landscapes“. He pointed out that these are all preliminary sketches which include interesting sketches of early Geelong and Lake Connewarre. Geoff has no idea how his sketchbook came to be in the State Library of NSW. While other sketches are in the possession of his descendants, many works from his collection have been preserved for posterity both in Melbourne and also in Sydney.
These following sketches have been selected from the Dixon Library’s collection.
The Joseph Masters Sketches of Geelong
Roll your mouse over the images to see the captions
Joseph Masters was a Colonial male sketcher and businessman whose drawings of Melbourne and Geelong landscapes were considered carefully observed for an amateur. He drew several views of Melbourne and Geelong c.1856-64, including Dight’s Mills on the Yarra 1856 (Grimwade Collection, Potter Gallery, University of Melbourne). A collection of his drawings is also in the Dixson Library in NSW and it is from this collection that the sketches of Geelong, for this article, have been selected..
Joseph Masters was born in Witney UK in 1836 and arrived in Melbourne on the ship Asia in 1853. He travelled and sketched around Melbourne, Geelong and the Mornington Peninsula He was presumably the ‘Mr. Masters, another amateur,’ who showed From Studley Park in the Melbourne Fine Art exhibition of 1862-63. The Illustrated Melbourne Post commended the care with which it was painted and the way in which ‘the artist has studied the specific details of Australian landscape, with an observing eye’.
Joseph married Alice Lotherington in 1867. Joseph and Alice lived in Rochester Street in Kew and had 5 children one of whom did not survive infancy. She was the granddaughter of William Umphelby who, at the first land auction in Melbourne, purchased a block on the corner of Collins and Queen Street and established a hotel. This is now the site of the ANZ bank.
Joseph worked for Joske Brothers, Wine and Spirit Merchants on Market Street until his death in 1876 at the age of only 40. The reference in Design & Art Australia Online to his father as a furniture dealer of 122 Bridge Road, Richmond, is incorrect. His father never emigrated. Joseph Masters is buried in the Boroondara General Cemetery.
Sources:
Collection: drawings of Melbourne and Geelong, 1856-1864 / Joseph Masters. NSW State Library https://archival.sl.nsw.gov.au/Details/archive/110339895
Design & Art Australia Online – https://www.daao.org.au/bio/joseph-masters/biography/
Victorian Heritage Database Report – ANZ Bank Melbourne. https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/733/download-report
