painter, was born in Edinburgh on 18 September 1851. He came to Melbourne with his parents in 1856, where he was educated at Dr Brunton’s school. In the late 1860s White studied at the Artisans’ School of Design in Carlton. He is undoubtedly the John White who exhibited a watercolour portrait and a sketch, The Close of Day , at the 1869 Melbourne Public Library Exhibition and who showed Victorian landscapes with the Victorian Academy of Arts in 1870 when living in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. When White’s Cray Fishers, Phillip Island, Western Port Bay, Victoria was included in the preparatory exhibition of works to be sent to the 1873 London International Exhibition, the Age of 6 November 1872 described it as 'a landscape on Phillip Island, with three figures in the foreground, two hauling up a creel loaded with fish, and a third hurrying up to inspect the catch … The headland is bold and vigorous, but the colour is slightly too vivid.’ The perspective, however, was judged perfect and the figure-drawing strictly in conformity with the laws of anatomy. White also showed a portrait of a gentleman and another landscape in oils, Riddell’s Creek ('the sunlight effect is striking, and the reflex of the timber in the flowing stream is treated with artistic skill’). When these were shown in London, White was identified as a student at the National Gallery School under von Gué rard .
By then White too was in Britain. He studied at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, in 1873 79, winning the Keith Prize for design in 1875. From 1877 his paintings were hung at the Royal Academy and most of the other major exhibition venues in London; in 1882 his oil painting Silver and Grey was acclaimed 'landscape of the year’ at the Royal Academy. He painted numerous landscapes, portraits and genre subjects and became well known for his Pear’s soap advertisements. Elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours in 1882, he remained a member until retiring in 1931. He lived at Beer, Devon until his death in 1933.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
