A Portrait of Colonial Tasmania

During the 19th century Van Diemen's Land (renamed Tasmania in 1855) witnessed a flowering of artistic endeavour that was unsurpassed in the Australian colonies, as a result of free emigration and convict transportation. In the period before the ready use of photography, artists, convict and free, recorded the traditional inhabitants, the land, and white settlement. Drawing on rich European traditions of portraiture and landscape painting the life of the colony was recorded through visual images.

The later period saw the displacement of the Aboriginal people, the end of convict transportation, the growth of settlement, an emerging awareness of the hinterland, and the mantle passed to a fresh generation of artists and subjects. The exhibition seeks to record these events as seen through the eyes and talents of the artists.

Also featured are early examples of Tasmanian furniture including a rare six-leg casuarina dresser and blackwood bow-fronted sideboard made in about 1820.