FLOCKTON, FREDERICK (1835-1901)

"Roses" (c.1885)
watercolour
47.5 x 31cm
signed lower right
*private collection, Sydney
 
Flockton is a forgotten English-born Australian Watercolourist. Born in North London, Flockton moved throughout England as a young man, working as a broker's clerk. By the middle 1860s, Francis had thrown his secure occupation to the winds and become an artist. Flockton is listed in the Dictionary of Victorian Painters by Christopher Wood and his exhibition history 1866-1876, including 2 at the Royal Academy and 4 at Suffolk Street are listed in Graves Dictionary. The artist was known primarily for his painting of mossy banks, with birds nests and, as in this case, birds. He also produced at least ten of rather surreal/fantasy pictures, with goblins and strange creatures etc with the theme of alcohol, religion, art and the devil. In later life, he immigrated to Australia in the early 1880s with his wife and three daughters, where he turned to landscapes, and detailed still life watercolours, like this piece. His career was overshadowed by his middle daughter, Margaret Lillian Flockton (1961-1953), whom, inspired by her father, became a prominent botanical artist. In fact she was the first female lithographic illustrator of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney, after whom an annual award is made by the Gardens.