SELLS, ALFRED ARTHUR (1822-1908)

"On The Barossa Hills (Kangaroo Hunt)"
watercolour
cm
annotated lower centre
*private collection, Sydney
 
Reverend Alfred Arthur Sells was a noted English Clergyman and Pioneering Colonial Artist. He was a schoolmaster at Marlborough College in the 1840s, clergyman and amateur artist. He was ordained a priest in England in 1847. He and his family left for Australia in 1876. Sells took up his post as Incumbent of the Holy Trinity Church at Lyndoch in the Barossa Valley. Settled in 1839, Lyndoch is one of the oldest towns in South Australia. He was later Incumbent at St Michael's Church at Mitcham from 1884 until he returned to England in 1888. As an amateur artist, Sells catalogued the early years of white migration in the Barossa Valley. His watercolours are an essential recording of life for settlers in the area. 'The paintings of this extraordinary pioneer parson are often the only records we have of certain parts of Australia a century ago.' The majority of his surviving paintings are in the collection of the State Library Of South Australia. Other examples of the same period are represented at the Art Gallery Of South Australia. An album of 20 of his Adelaide & Barossa Valley watercolours sold at Bonhams in London for £48k ($AUD86k) in 2010. This RARE detailed, original watercolour depicts a hunter taking aim at a kangaroo in the Barossa Hills.