We know little of the early Australian water colourist, Charles Gordon Sebastian Hirst, except that he was an itinerant artist, who sketched mainly in south eastern Queensland from the early 1870s. He produced a series of charming, naive renderings of houses and public buildings in Brisbane, Ipswich and Toowoomba. His earliest located work was produced for James March when he depicted Marston Homestead, Emu Plains in July 1871.(1) He claimed to be a member of the `Madras Institute’ and to be an author and architect as well as an artist. The naive aspect and the multiple viewpoints evident in his drawings of buildings would suggest his claim to architectural training is suspect.
It seems that the owners of these properties commissioned Hirst’s views of their properties. In this regard, Hirst performed the same function as Conrad Martens did some twenty years earlier. Although Hirst’s clientele were the smaller landholders of the Brisbane Valley they were as proud of their material success in the colony as were the wealthy squatters of the Darling Downs.
It is fortunate that Hirst annotated his subjects so conscientiously as we can trace his progress up to a point. His earliest Queensland subject is in the collection of the John Oxley Library, Brisbane and is titled `Ferriestown: The Farmstead of Mr John Campbell, at Laidley Creek: 26 miles from Ipswich, Queensland’ Aug. 1873. The Library also holds `View of part of the township of the 'Rocky-water holes’ on the Brisbane and Ipswich Road, 5 miles from Brisbane’ 1875, together with another four works. During 1879, Hirst obviously travelled to Toowoomba, the major regional town of the Darling Downs, as both `The new courthouse in Toowoomba’ and `The Toowoomba Botanical Gardens’ in the collection of the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery are dated from this year.
Hirst’s latest dated work `Claremont House, the residence of Mr George Bashford, near Ipswich’ of April 1881, is in the collection of the National Library of Australia, Canberra, and other watercolours may be identified to trace his career further. He appears to have produced few artworks in the last decade of his life, or if he did, they have not survived. The explanation of this may be linked to the cause of Hirst’s death – he died in a boarding house in Brisbane in 1890 from an overdose of laudanum.
Research Curator, Queensland Heritage
- Writers:
- Cooke, Glenn R.
- Date written:
- 2008
- Last updated:
- 2011
