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painter, engraver, sculptor and art lecturer, was born in London of Huguenot descent. His father was a watchmaker. After apprenticeship to a London engraver, possibly Thomas Dean, he worked as both an engraver and painter. He had six portraits hung at the Royal Academy between 1817 and 1823, when living at 64 Warren Street, including Portrait of an Artist (RA 1819), perhaps a self-portrait, and Portrait of an Arabian Child (RA 1821). Three genre paintings were shown with the British Institution: The Basket Maker (1820), The Beggar Reproved (1824) and The Fruit Girl (1825). The Children in the Wood and Portrait of a Lady were shown at the Suffolk Street galleries of the Society of British Artists in 1824 and 1827 respectively. Benjamin married Miss Perigal, a daughter of the family with whom the Duterraus were in partnership in a watch- and clock-making firm in New Bond Street.

The positions of drawing master and music teacher at Ellinthorp Hall in Van Diemen’s Land were offered to Duterrau and his daughter, Sarah Jane, respectively but were filled instead by Henry Mundy before Duterrau, aged sixty-five, his daughter and his sister-in-law belatedly disembarked at Hobart Town from the Laing on 17 August 1832. According to Sir William Dixson they had stopped off at the infant Swan River settlement, certainly then no place for an artist to gain a livelihood. A 'Thomas W. Dutterau’ is listed as having arrived at Western Australia in the Egyptian from London on 28 December 1831 and in June 1832 he applied for a civil service post, giving as his reason that he could not find enough work as a watch repairer to support himself; but this man was younger (born 1814) and did not leave for Van Diemen’s Land until November 1834. Benjamin was probably delayed in London; the watch repairer sounds like a relative.

Having lost his teaching position, Duterrau opened a studio in Hobart Town. He advertised in the Hobart Town Courier that, 'having arranged the paintings which he recently brought with him from London, he will be happy to exhibit them to such ladies or gentlemen as may wish to view or to purchase any of them, as well as to follow his profession of portrait painting. Campbell Street, opposite Mr. Bisdee’s, Nov. 7, 1832’. The advertisement belatedly appeared on 21 December 1832, by which time Lieutenant-Governor Arthur had visited Duterrau’s studio (in October) and engaged Sarah as governess to his children. She married a merchant, John Bogle, in February 1838 and returned to Britain the following year. Moore states that after her father’s death his best work was sent to her at her request.

For more than ten years from about 1833 Duterrau’s major concern was the depiction of Tasmanian Aborigines, in particular their 'conciliation’ (transportation) by the Methodist 'protector’ George Augustus Robinson . A large finished oil study of The Conciliation is dated 1840 (Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart). The artist revered Robinson, seeing him as the man who had stopped the warfare between the white and black races attendant on the European colonisation of Tasmania and Aboriginal resistance to the seizure of their lands. In April 1836 he presented Robinson with 'a splendid full-size portrait’ of Woureddy as a token of gratitude. By using intermediaries such as Trukanini and Woureddy who were fluent in several languages, and by learning some himself, Robinson persuaded many Aborigines to be taken to an island and thus isolated from white settlement.

In Duterrau’s painting the white races are symbolised by Robinson in his 'bush dress’ (depicted complete with rhetorical gesture), while the black races are represented by Aborigines in 'native’ dress posed around and below him, the conciliation of the title being equally manifest in the mutual tolerance of the dogs (introduced to Tasmania by Europeans) and kangaroo. This was the first history painting attempted in Australia, this heroic genre being seen by Duterrau as the most appropriate way to record such a 'favourable’ course of events. Although a life-size version of the painting was begun (recorded at the auction of his works on 27 August 1851 but now lost), it seems never to have been completed.

Duterrau investigated the theme in at least four media: pencil drawings, etchings, plaster reliefs and oils. Most were studies for the proposed 3.04 × 4.26 metre 'National Picture’ and included large individual portraits of notable figures such as Truggernana [Trukanini] and Woureddy (1834, oils, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart). These with two others were purchased for the colony by Lieutenant-Governor Arthur after a petition was sent to the Executive Council in June 1837. The colonial secretary noted that 113 inhabitants of Hobart Town had recommended that 'four likenesses of aborigines which have been painted by Mr. Duterrau should be purchased from that artist to be preserved in some public place as a memorial of the original inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land … The Lieut. Governor has great pleasure in authorising the purchase of these pictures at our expense of 80 guineas, the sighting sum asked for them by Mr. Duterrau’.

Other oil portraits of single Aboriginal figures are in the National Library of Australia, (and/or the National Gallery), the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Museum of Mankind, London. Duterrau also depicted Aborigines engaged in traditional occupations and amusements, such as Native Catching a Kangaroo (1837, oil, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra), announced as the first of a new series by Duterrau in the Hobart Town Courier of 23 June 1837 as if in preparation for a large companion painting depicting Aboriginal life before European settlement, a subject then also being painted by John Glover . Duterrau stated that two Port Phillip (Melbourne) Aborigines, Derah-Mert and Bait Bainger, would be included in his new series. His oil of The Chief Derah Mat of Port Philip [sic] , dated 5 October 1836, is known (Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney). In the Hobart Town Courier of 29 November 1833, James Ross said that Duterrau’s portraits of the Aborigines revealed their inward passions as well as their external appearance

Although probably without training as a sculptor, Duterrau modelled a bas-relief in plaster depicting G.A. Robinson and his group of 'friendly natives’ (c.1833 35, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney) which appears to be among the first sculptures produced in Australia. He also offered for sale in the Hobart Town Courier of 5 August 1836, at 30s apiece complete with cedar frame, a series of thirteen painted plaster casts of life-size heads in high relief set on tablets measuring 13 × 10 inches (33 × 25.4 cm). Again the subjects were Robinson and the Aborigines, 'wherein various expressions of some particular passions, &c., are delineated which Mr. Duterrau has carefully observed in those interesting people’. They included: 1 Mr. Robinson, in his Bush Dress , 2 Manalargerna, the Chief , 3 Tanleboueyer, Wife of the Chief , 5 Truggernana, Wife of Wooreddy , 6 Credulity , 7 Anger , 8 Surprise , 9 Suspicion , and 13 The Manner of Straightening a Spear . Duterrau’s initials and the date, 1835, appear on the back of each work. Ten of the thirteen are now in the Tasmanian Museum at Hobart; numbers 1, 3 and 6 have disappeared. The Tasmanian Museum also has a larger relief of Timmy (1835), not part of the advertised series.

Duterrau delivered a high-minded lecture on art (possibly the first to be given in any of the Australian colonies) at the Hobart Town Mechanics’ Institute on 16 July 1833. He also presented a portrait he had done of the British philosopher Dr Joseph Priestley (put on display in the lecture room), which Ross in the Hobart Town Courier (19 July 1833) again said portrayed the mind rather than the mere physical appearance of the subject. His lecture topic was the importance of the cultivation of the fine arts to the right development of the colony, in particular the encouragement provided by such organisations as the Mechanics Institute. Ross reported him as saying: 'Those who countenance art and science are setting an example to the rising generation, who no doubt, will be grateful for putting in their way as they arrive at maturity, the means to become a truly civilized people’. Similar themes were chosen for other lectures, his views on poetry and painting being summarised in the Hobart Town Advertiser of 18 July 1848. The most developed of his lectures, 'The School of Athens [both Raphael’s painting and the philosophers of ancient Greece], as it Assimilates with the Mechanics’ Institution’, was delivered at the Hobart Town Mechanics Institute in 1849.

Some of the earliest etchings known to have been executed in the Australian colonies were produced by Duterrau in 1835. The subjects were, predictably, the same group of Tasmanian Aborigines, mainly individual studies subsequently used in The Conciliation , and a rough (reversed) sketch of the composition itself. In March 1836 Duterrau designed, etched and published Wild Native Taking a Kangaroo, his Dog Having Caught It, He Runs to Kill It with his Waddy and A Kangaroo Caught by a Wild Native’s Dog. The Native Then Seizes the Kangaroo & Kills It with his Waddy . In August he produced A View of Hobart Town Taken from Kangaroo Point , Hobart Town as Seen from the Top of Mount Nelson and Storm Bay as Seen from the Top of Mount Nelson . Three of the copperplates and 'Engravings from his Oil Paintings’ were included in his posthumous studio sale.

Several oil portraits of European settlers done in the 1830s and 1840s are also extant, including Eliza, Lady Arthur and Governor Arthur (c.1830, National Library of Australia, Canberra), The Walker Children (1839, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart), Portrait of Emmely Frances Watchorn (1830s, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide) and the attributed Portrait of Caleb Tapping (Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart), and a confident if literally ham-fisted self-portrait showing Duterrau holding a book of engravings, Raffaelle’s Cartoons and School of Athens (1837, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart). He drew pencil and watercolour views in and around Hobart Town, including the busy and lively New Town Racecourse (1830s, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart). Duterrau died on 11 July 1851 and was buried in the Presbyterian section of the Hobart Town General Cemetery.

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FROM JOAN KERR’S BLACK AND WHITE FILES:

Painter and printmaker, included a comical drawing in his very high-minded sketchboook 'Duterrau Aborigines of Tasmania Etchings and Drawings’ (SLNSW ML), inscribed 'Hobart Town 1834-5’ on the title page, above 'The Small Outline of a National Picture described… On Mr. Robinson’s right side is a woman, who is warned by her husband, not to listen quite so readily./ …The man sitting on the ground below the group, is a wild native making & straightening a spear… size of the picture, 11 feet by 8’. On page 9 is a note that the last 12 sketches in the book are 'From the National Picture’ whole length with Natives in blacklead drawings. No.13 to No. 24 – 12 figures 'All taken from life in the year 1834 AD’.

No.1 – the comic example – shows a black man and is annotated 'Arms too short’. It is titled verso 'Wild Native singing while engag’d in frolicsome Dancing’.

Produced Australia’s first known etchings. His etchings related to The National Picture , e.g. 'A Group of Natives Surrounding G.A. Robinson’ 1835, etching, BFAG (ill. Hansen, cat.90), are historically significant for subject and medium. Duterrau Aborigines of Tasmania: Etchings and Drawings (bound volume ML Px A2004) includes the title page 'Hobart Town 1834-5’; 'The Small Outline of a National Picture described’ (p.9), i.e. notes on last 12 sketches in book 'From the National Picture’, e.g. 'On Mr. Robinson’s right side is a woman, who is warned by her husband, not to listen quite so readily’ ... 'The man sitting on the ground below the group, is a wild native making and straightening a spear’... 'size of the picture, 11 feet by 8’; whole length with Natives in blacklead drawings.. No.13 to No.24—12 figures £18.00/ All taken from life in the year 1834/ BD.’ A comical drawing of black man is annotated No.1 'Arms too short’ and (verso) 'Wild Native singing while engag’d in frolicsome Dancing’. Individual etchings include: 'Woureddy/ A wild native of Brune Island one of Mr Robinson’s most faithful attendants attach’d to the mission in 1829’ and 'Truggernana/ A native of the southern part of V.D. Land & Wife to Woureddy was attach’d to the mission in 1829’, both 'Design’d, etch’d & publish’d by Bn Duterrau Augt 24th 1835 Hobart Town Van Diemen’s Land’; 'A Kangaroo caught by a Wild Native’s Dog’ and 'A Wild Native taking a Kangaroo, his Dog having caught it, he runs to kill it with his Waddy’ (both have W.D. in a circle on l.h.s. of pic. and are dated March 23rd 1836):

Writers:

Dixon, Christine Note: Dictionary of Australian Artists biography
Kerr, Joan Note: additional information

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

1989