Design and Art Australia Online

painter, sketcher, cartoonist, draughtsman and stationer, was born in Barking, Essex, on 11 May 1810, son of John Joseph Pittman, agriculturalist, and Elizabeth, née Fuker. Virtually nothing is known of Pittman’s education although he seems to have had experience as a draughtsman before coming to Victoria. He arrived in the Enmore on 11 April 1843 and went into partnership with his younger brother Frederick, a merchant who had been established in Melbourne for some years. In November he exhibited two portraits of local personalities in their shop window, Beverly Suttor, 'The Poet’, and J.W. Hooson, Melbourne Council’s street keeper. These were announced as the first of a series of 'Heads of the People’; the Port Phillip Gazette reported that the next was to be a portrait of William Cooper. Meanwhile, as the newspaper also noted, ladies or gentlemen could procure a lasting impression of themselves from Pittman for £2.

The partnership was dissolved on 1 June 1844 and Pittman carried on the stationery section of the business at 49 Collins Street until April 1852, then sold out to Huxtable & Co. He advertised in 1846 as a miniature and portrait painter, lithographer, stationer, bookbinder, emblazoner of arms and engraver of crests on stone or metal ('Designs and Drawings made in all branches of Art’) but his artistic work is known only in the form of lithographs printed by Thomas Ham . The earliest recorded is The Union Bank of Australia, Melbourne , printed, published and sold at 1s 6d by Ham in October 1844. Two prints after Pittman’s sketches, The Government Offices, Melbourne and St. Francis Church, Melbourne , were presented to subscribers of the Port Phillip Patriot in July and October 1845 respectively. Of particular interest is his surviving political cartoon on the departure of Governor Gipps, Deck of the Gipsy for London. Drawn & Published J. Pittman, Collins Street, Melbourne. Lithographed by Thos. Ham (c.1846, LT), one of the earliest recorded Melbourne cartoons. [Joan Kerr note: It looks very like the work of E.D. Barlow (ill. DAA ) – or vice versa.]

After the sale of his business, Pittman continued as a government supplier of stationery and bookbinding, for which he had held the contract since 1843, but he experienced much difficulty in receiving payment for work done and government orders proved insufficient to keep his establishment fully occupied. He lost the contract in 1854, when a book bindery was established at the Government Printing Office, and he was passed over for appointment as officer-in-charge in favour of his partner, R. Penson. He then went into partnership with Frederick Augustus Cox in the British and Foreign Fancy Goods Repository at 62 Elizabeth Street, but the venture was unsuccessful. In February 1856 their assets were assigned to trustees for the benefit of the creditors and the partnership was declared bankrupt in July.

In the meantime, Pittman had been employed as a colourist of geological maps at 5s per set, and he was appointed draughtsman and colourist to the Geological Survey of Victoria on 1 August 1856 when the survey was formally constituted. He also acted as clerk, later being styled chief clerk. On the abolition of the survey on 31 December 1868, he was retrenched, then reinstated to complete the financial business of the office and help arrange the Mining Department’s collection shown at the Melbourne Public Library Exhibition in November 1869. Again dismissed on 30 January 1870, he successfully petitioned for a pension.

Pittman was married twice: to Fanny Bolger in St James’s Church on 21 May 1844 and, after Fanny’s death on 29 March 1862, to Mary Sarah West on 17 April 1863 in Christ Church, St Kilda. He may have returned to England after his retirement as his son Edward F. Pittman attended London’s Royal School of Mines in 1873-76.

Works include Portrait of Dr. Leichhardt. Drawn by J. Pittman on stone. Lithographed by Thos. Ham , in Port Phillip Herald , 2 June 1846 supplement; The Union Bank of Australia, Melbourne. Sketched & Drawn by J. Pittman, Melbne. Thos. Ham Lithogr. Market Sqre., Melbourne n.d. (October 1844); Sketch of Bone Cave Ravine in Pliocene Tertiary Basalt—Explored by C.D.E. Aplin Assistant Surveyor in 1857. J. Pittman Del. R. Shepherd Lith. , Geological Survey of Victoria, quarter sheet 7NW, n.d. (1862).

Writers:

Darragh, Thomas A.

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

1989