Design and Art Australia Online

painter and scene-painter, was born in England on 14 January 1848, son of Dr Rupert Pincott and Ann, née Stow. The family sailed for Victoria in the Eliza , landing at Portland on 9 April 1853. On 31 August they reached Geelong in the Francis Henty , where they settled. Young Pincott began his schooling at Geelong Grammar. In 1869 he exhibited six watercolours and one chalk drawing of local scenery at the Geelong Mechanics Institute and three watercolours and the same chalk drawing ( Wreck of the Light of the Age at Queenscliff ) at the Ballarat Mechanics Institute. The You Yangs, from Drysdale and possibly Queenscliff and Point Nepean from Swan Bay were watercolours common to both exhibitions. In 1871 he exhibited an oil painting of Buckley Falls at Fyansford in Geelong. The following year he showed views of Cora Lynn (Tasmania) and several New Zealand scenes at the town’s newly established Frank’s Art Gallery.

In 1873 Pincott held his fourth art union at Geelong, offering six of his large oil paintings of colonial scenery as prizes. The views of the Grampians and Loutit Bay he exhibited in 1874 were considered some of 'the most picturesque and romantic scenery in the colony’ by the Geelong Advertiser . He showed four paintings with the Victorian Academy of Arts at Melbourne in 1874: three views of New Zealand and a Geelong scene, Early Morn on the Barwon . The latter and Sunset, Mount Cook were thought by the special reporter of the Geelong Advertiser to be evidence of 'Pincott’s reputation as an artist of considerable promise’. The Victorian and New Zealand landscapes he exhibited with the academy in 1875 were praised, Lady Mountain Lake being especially noted as 'a remarkable piece of scenery’ with 'weird and gloomy features’.

Pincott’s private commissions included three paintings ( Loutit Bay , The West Coast of New Zealand and The Grampians ) completed in 1875 for Mr Ayrey of Warren Hope Station. Lovers Leap , a precipitous ledge of rock above the Moorabool River, was done at the same time for John Wallace of Ballark. He also held 'classes for instruction in oil and watercolour painting’ in the town, but the patronage of the squattocracy proved the more lucrative and in 1876 he advised his pupils that he was unable to resume classes until March as there was 'so much work in the Horsham area’. In fact, classes did not resume until July. His Wimmera patrons included the aforementioned Mr Ayrey, for whom Pincott painted five more oil views of his station before May 1877, including the homestead, the training stables and the Richardson River.

Pincott continued to hold regular art unions of his work. In September 1877 eighty subscribers were attracted to a lottery which offered as prizes Early Morning on the Barwon , Melbourne from Brander’s Ferry and The You Yangs Taken From the Rural District of Drysdale . As reported in the Geelong Advertiser of 26 September 1877, the last was won by Robert McDonald, a chemist of Ryrie Street. Pincott finished another oil painting in October, described as 'a piece of bush scenery on the road to St Leonard’s’. In December he was at the gold-mining town of Creswick completing a drop-scene measuring 19 × 17 feet (5.79 × 5.18 m) for the Town Hall stage. He worked sporadically as a scene-painter – usually at Christmas-time when the spectacular pantomime scenery required extra hands – at the Theatre Royal, Hobart Town, and as assistant to John Hennings at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne in 1876 and 1880.

Apart from such short breaks Pincott continued to paint in and around Geelong until 1882, then travelled to San Francisco where he is said to have exhibited some of his paintings. He was back at Geelong by 1889, the year he painted the monochrome watercolour Paper Mill on the Barwon (Geelong Art Gallery).

Pincott died at Perth, Western Australia, on 27 February 1893. Most of his paintings remain in private collections.

Writers:

Fox, Paul

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011