Design and Art Australia Online

Commenced his professional career as a frontier jackaroo, bushman and later manager of Chesterton Station in Maranoa/Warrego district in Queensland (50 km south, south-west of Carnarvon National Park) from this stations was established in about 1862 to 1867. Seem to have spent time also in Barcoo district in Queensland. His career in art obviously began in the early 1860s. A sepia drawing by him from 1863 of the 'Old “Government House”, Port Macquarie’ was thus reprinted in the 'Sydney Morning Herald’ on 19 May 1941 (page 11) and returning to New South Wales he became a grazier, draftsman, watercolour painter and occasional writer. He is thus the author of 'Black and White’ a serialised somewhat fictionalised story of printed in the New South Wales journal 'Country Life’ during November and December 1926. It was a story about a native police ‘dispersal’ at a place known as 'Top Plain’ in the remote Maranoa bush. The story was later published with a lengthy preface by novelist and author Judith Wright (Black and White: the story of a massacre and its aftermath, preface by Judith Wright, publ. Richmond, Victoria 1988, 138 pages ill.)

Chambers was educated at Rev. John Pendill’s school, The Glebe, Sydney. He was one of the original members of the Art Society of NSW and won first prize of 5 guineas offered by Messrs Gibbs, Shallard and Co. in its first art competition in 1881, 'for the Best Original Black & White Drawing, domestic or otherwise, illustrative of colonial life or character. The picture ['Peace’] represents a Brigalo-scrub-bound plain in the Barcoo country, Queensland, showing the peculiar refraction in the distance occasioned by the flatness of the scenery; the chief feature of the picture being a large, young male Emu about to relieve the female in the sitting duties. In the background is a pair of old Emus with the young brood. It is a very fine and spirited sketch. It will be followed in due course by the companion picture, entitled 'War’, a view in the Nandewar Range country NSW, showing a couple of common brown or 'dusty-tail’ kangaroos engaged in a desperate conflict. The stronger of the two animals is on the point of overpowering the other, whose frame is quivering with mingled excitement and terror. It is an extremely powerful picture boldly conceived and vigorously finished’.

'Peace’ appeared in the September issue as a coloured supplement and 'War’some time later. Chambers was described as 'a new colonial artist … [from] May Vale, Barraba’.

In Gibbs, Shallard & Co’s 1882 competition Blagden Chambers was awarded second prize of £20 for Anguis in Herba :

the snake in the grass is an aboriginal hunter crouching at sundown under a low bush at the edge of a waterhole to which emus resort to drink. His spears and boomerangs are at his side, and his eyes fairly flash as he watches the first emu – leader of a mob which trails away into the haze of sunset – bending its graceful head over the lily-flecked pond. The picture is full of finish, and the subject is a characteristic Australian one, treated by a man who has evidently seen what he has represented … also painted a companion picture called 'Leaden Persuasives’ which represents a sharp and bloody affray between the contending races in Northern Queensland – the white and the black. The native warrior, unlike the aboriginals we see in the southern colonies possess such muscular development as is shown in pictures of Zulus, and fight like tigers, but the Winchester and the Revolver are too many for them and have laid more than one dark figure low. The form and colour of the vegetation are admirably reproduced, and the distance is unusually good. Mr Chambers takes third prize for his sketch 'Parrots and Gum Blossons’ but although a great deal of careful work is shown in it, it is certainly flat and the colouring is thin.

The Daily Telegraph of 29 April 1882 stated that Chambers’s second prize painting, 'Anguis in Herba’, was a 'fine painting of a black fellow in complete war attire, hiding beneath a bush … The drawing and colouring … is exceedingly clever and tasteful and shows remarkable close attention to detail. With another picture “Parrots and Gum Blossoms” not comparable with the other, and hardly worthy, in spite of the careful work evidently expended upon it, of its place, Mr Chambers takes the third prize [of £10] ... Mr Chambers’ “Leaden Persuasiveness” ... well repays careful inspection … in which the artist graphically depicts a fight “a outrance” between the northern aboriginals and the white man.’ The Evening News of 24 April 1882 noted: '“Anguis in Herba” has considerable merit, and some faults … drawn with great spirit, but the birds repairing to the waterhole and which are evidently intended for emus are not so well done. ... “Leaden Persuasives” a fight between blacks and whites in the North, is also a bold conception and fairly done. The theme is a fine one and we would advise the painter thereof … to repaint the sketch on a larger scale and with more attention to perspective and minute details of drawing than is displayed in the work under notice. Properly finished it would make a grand picture.’

See for supplement 'Not Game’, after Blagden Chambers, as well as a lengthy description.

'Chambers, B. Character figures and bush scenery in water-colour. Work full of life’ (A.E. Greenwood & H.W.H. Stephen, Catalogue (Descriptive and Critical) of the Art Gallery with Sydney Art Notes , Sydney, 1883).

See Illustrated Sydney News (20 January 1883) for supplement “Leaden Persuasion”: 'the spear and the boomerang have little chance against the leaden “persuasives” of the Northern police’.

Exhibited at the third annual exhibition of the Art Society of NSW in 1883: 'B. Chambers, of Barraba, is represented by three watercolours, dealing with purely Australian subjects in a very easy yet vigorous, style. [No.]204 “Of Two Evils, Choose the Lesser” represents a sorely pressed kangaroo springing from a lofty rock into a river to escape the jaws of two dogs close behind. The expression of the hunted creature and the baffled hunters is well given, and the picture which is in monochrome is full of interest. [No.] 350 “Saved” shows a party of gins succouring a poor stockman or shepherd, who seems to be at the brink of death, presumably, from thirst; and 356 “Leaden Persuasion” represents a skirmish between pioneers and natives in the far north’.

Exhibited in the fourth annual exhibition of the Art Society of NSW in 1883: 'Mr Blagden has sent only one picture, but the subject of that, though somewhat gruesome, is characteristically Australian, and the treatment is clever. A dead man, partially screened by his scarlet blanket stretched out on two saplings near his head, lies beside a dried-up waterhole. His fire has burnt out, his billy is overturned and athwart the long plain behind him a gaunt dingo warily skulks, stealthily watching the “lost” one, who has slept into eternity’.

Exhibition at John Sands Gallery, Sydney: 'Mr B. Chambers has sent in eight or nine pictures [all watercolours]. “Anguis in Herba” a blackfellow lurking in low scrub near a waterhole, towards which a flock of thirsty emus are hurrying, has been seen before; and so has “Leaden Persuasion”, a fight in the far north between a party of explorers and a tribe of myalls. “Lost” – a man lying dead beside a dried waterhole, towards which a dingo is stealing – was one of the attractions at the Art Society Exhibition recently; and Mr Chambers has now painted a picture like and yet unlike it in sentiment. He has named it “Saved” for it represents the succour of the explorer King on Cooper’s Creek by those kindly girls, whose coolamens of water rescued King from the dread fate which had already overtaken the other members of the Burke and Wills expedition. In all of these pictures Mr Chambers has reproduced faithfully the grey and brown tints of the long inland plains and their characteristic atmospheric effects’.

Exhibited Art Society of NSW 1887.

His print First View (an Aborigine seeing a ship) was published in 1900.

Blagden Chambers died at Boggabri, NSW.

Writers:

Staff Writer
Willow

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007