MARTIN, MARGARET DISCOMBE (1826-1892)

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"From Milson's Point, North Shore" (1870)

watercolour & bodycolour

signed lower right

*exhibited at Agricultural Society Of NSW's Metropolitan Intercolonial Exhibition at the Exhibition Building at Prince Albert Park in Sept. 1870

*private collection, Wollongong

Martin was a pioneering English Colonial Female painter. She arrived with her family on the Barque Velore from Bristol to Port Phillip, Melbourne in early 1853. By July she was in Sydney where her father was employed at the Central Police Office, living at 412 Pitt Street. In Sydney, she studied under legendary English painter, Conrad Martens (the first professional painter in Australia), who taught her landscape watercolour painting of the new colony in a distinctly British style. Martin relocated to a studio at 195 Macquarie Street and mastered her craft by producing copies of works by her mentor Martens and Frederick Casemero Terry (another important Colonial painter), as well as numerous original compositions. From 1863-1885 she was the Headmistress of the girls' school, Rosemount, in Darlinghurst, Sydney. She exhibited 10 works in the watercolour section of the 1870 Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition (including this work, one of only 5 original compositions, this one her most ambitious). She regularly exhibited as an amateur with the New South Wales Academy of Art, her New England views being much admired in 1872. In the mid 1880s she returned to England to care for her ailing mother & sister, & is buried in South Devon. Her works are incredibly RARE, with only two works owned by the Armidale Historical Society & State Library Of NSW respectively. A hugely important Australian historical artefact, not only as a pioneering female artist, but an early Australian artist.

This stunning work (soon to be restored) by ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S FIRST FEMALE PAINTERS, depicts Circular Quay from Milson's Point. You can see Fort Macquarie, Government House & Old Government Windmill in the Domain. This work was exhibited at the important Agricultural Society Of NSW's Metropolitan Intercolonial Exhibition at the Exhibition Building at Prince Albert Park in Sept. 1870 (demolished 1954)!!