Eugene von Guerard

In 1852 von Guerard arrived in Victoria, Australia, determined to try his luck on the Victorian goldfields. As a gold-digger he was unsuccessful, but he did produce a large number of intimate studies of goldfields life, quite different from the deliberately awe-inspiring landscapes for which he was later to become famous.

He was one of a number of influential German-speaking residents — such as Ludwig Becker, Hermann Beckler, William Blandowski, Amalie Dietrich, Wilhelm Haacke, Diedrich Henne, Gerard Krefft, Johann Luehmann, Johann Menge, Carl Mücke (a.k.a. Muecke), Ludwig Preiss, Carl Ludwig Christian Rümker (a.k.a. Ruemker), Moritz Richard Schomburgk, Richard Wolfgang Semon, Karl Theodor Staiger, George Ulrich, Robert von Lendenfeld, Ferdinand von Mueller, Georg von Neumayer, and Carl Wilhelmi — who brought their "epistemic traditions" to Australia, and not only became "deeply entangled with the Australian colonial project", but also were "intricately involved in imagining, knowing and shaping colonial Australia" (Barrett, et al., 2018, p.2). By the early 1860s von Guerard was recognised as the foremost landscape artist in the colonies, touring Southeast Australia and New Zealand in pursuit of the sublime and the picturesque. He is most known for the wilderness paintings produced during this time, which are remarkable for their shadowy lighting and fastidious detail. Indeed, his view of Tower Hill in south-western Victoria was used as a botanical template over a century later when the land, which had been laid waste and polluted by agriculture, was systematically reclaimed, forested with native flora and made a state park. The scientific accuracy of such work has led to a reassessment of von Guerard's approach to wilderness painting, and some historians believe it likely that the landscapist was strongly influenced by the environmental theories of the leading scientist Alexander von Humboldt. Others attribute his 'truthful representation' of nature to the criterion for figure and landscape painting set by the Düsseldorf Academy. In 1866 his Valley of the Mitta Mitta was presented to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne; in 1870 the trustees purchased his Mount Kosciusko. In 2006, the City of Greater Geelong purchased his 1856 painting View of Geelong for A$3.8M. His painting, Yalla-y-Poora, is in the Joseph Brown Collection on display at the National Gallery of Victoria. In 2018 another painting, Stoneleigh, Beaufort near Ararat, Victoria (1866) was put on permanent display in the Galleries of the State Library of New South Wales. Von Guerard's paintings were also purchased by the Art Gallery of New South Wales including Waterfall, Strath Creek (1862), Sydney Heads (1865) and Milford Sound, New Zealand (1877–1879) among many others. The State Library of New South Wales in Sydney holds 32 sketchbooks which cover von Guerard’s twenty-eight years in Australia and also the period of his early travels in the Rhineland and Italy and his return to Europe after 1881. The drawings include pencil sketches, detailed pen and ink or pencil drawings, and a few with colour added and include works done on scientific expeditions with Alfred William Howitt and Georg von Neumayer, the meteorologist. The sketchbooks cover Italy and Germany, 1835–1852, Australia, 1854–1891, and the English sketchbook, 1891–1900. The only known copy of von Guerard's 1852–1854 diary of his time on the goldfields is held in England. But a typescript translation mad

Eugene von Guerard albums of original drawings - includes: Station Peak, Geelong, 1855; The Dandenong Ranges, 1855-1858; The Glenelg and Mt Gambier, 1857; Apollo Bay and Cape Otway, 1859 - 1862; Goulburn, 1862; Sketches in Victoria, 1862; Cape Schanck and Phillip Island, 1863-1869; Sketches 1863-1866, 1870, 1877; Wimmera; Ballarat - digitised copies online at State Library of New South Wales, 1LjRBy39