Design and Art Australia Online

painter, scene-painter and actor, was born in Ireland, son of Counsellor Dennis of Cork. He arrived at Sydney aboard the Tropic on 9 February 1838 as a free migrant and attempted to establish a career as a portraitist. When 'just finished’, his life-sized portrait of Chief Justice Dowling was praised by the Sydney Herald of 16 October 1840: 'the artist has been peculiarly successful in catching the peculiar expression of his face, which the Chief Justice assumes when he has said a good thing; there is that peculiar look which His Honor puts on when he wants to smile at one of his own repartees, but considers it beneath his dignity to do so. The picture is valuable as a portrait, admirable as a work of art, and must establish M. Dennis’s fame, as a very successful artist’.

Dennis also worked as a scene-painter. He had become principal scene-painter with the Royal Victoria Theatre by November 1840, leaving to join the new City Theatre in 1843. When this closed after a few weeks he moved to Parramatta and established a popular theatrical troupe, the Dennis Players, at the Steam Packet Inn. The crowds rapidly increased and in about 1844 he opened his own theatre in Church Street. Dennis played an active role in the cultural life of the Parramatta district, forming close friendships with W. Griffith and other local artists as well as lending support to the 1846 Parramatta Art Union.

He continued to work as a landscape and portrait painter. An exhibition of his portraits was on display at Elyard’s shop in George Street, Sydney, during July 1843. In 1844 he exhibited a painting titled The Crucifixion at Sydney’s Royal Hotel. Helen Oppenheim quotes a review of the work from the Australian of 22 February 1844, which describes Dennis as 'a good colourist, a correct draftsman, and an author of genius and prolific fancy … [but] the defect which runs through the picture is, that it is both too general and too special; in some portions breadth, in others detail, has too exclusively riveted the artist’s attention’. Albeit as 'H.’ Dennis, he was described by Heads of the People on 28 August 1847 as 'an historical painter of great merit, and the best oil painter in the colony’. His Portrait of Sir James Dowling had just been lent to the 1847 exhibition of the Society for the Promotion of the Fine Arts, where it was again highly praised. A copy by Joseph Backler was later hung in the NSW Supreme Court.

Dennis’s oil painting Lot and His Daughters leaving Sodom and Gomorrah was entered in the historical section of Joseph Grocott’s third art union. Grocott appears to have gone to some trouble to include a history painting in his exhibition, for in January 1850 'Mr Dennis, Artist, late of Sydney, and supposed to be now residing in or near Campbelltown’ was requested to put himself in touch with Grocott regarding a historical picture. Again the work attracted attention. 'The figures of Lot and his daughters and the angels are admirably drawn’, stated the Sydney Morning Herald of 20 July 1850, 'but the burning town in the distance is not managed well … on the whole, however, there is much originality and cleverness in the picture that is very creditable to the artist’. On 24 December 1863 the Herald fulsomely praised The Crucified Redeemer by J.V. (sic) Dennis, on exhibition in the reading room of the Temperance Hall.

Dennis’s later attempts at historical and religious subjects (then still theoretically considered the highest form of art) were far less successful. He sent The Transfiguration of Narcissus to the 1861 Victorian Exhibition of Fine Arts where, as the work of 'James’ Dennis of Campbelltown, it was vividly attacked in the Examiner and Melbourne Weekly News on 19 October. The critic stated that the subject was 'two impossible females, one of them seven feet [2.1 m] high whose corporeal structures are, judging by the colour, in an advanced stage of putrefaction. There is a very grim Cupid, there are two brown dogs, and a strumous-looking young man without his clothes. The gigantic female is seated upon what looks like tobacco smoke, and her feet rest upon a curious mirror shaped like a butcher’s tray with a rostrum. She is pointing upwards as if she wished it to be understood that it would shortly rain, only her face wears such an exceedingly fatuous expression that it is difficult to conceive the possibility of her being weather-wise or wise on any other subject’.

Nine years later the same painting was for sale in the 1870 Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition priced at 100 guineas. On this occasion it won the only award given for historical or genre painting, but reviews proved almost as critical. Dennis also exhibited Italian Beggar Boys, from Murillo (non-competitively: copies were not eligible for a prize) and two other oils in the category of 'Historical Pictures, or Tableau de Genre’, An Old Man Telling his Beads (8 guineas) and St. Peter’s Release from Prison (£30). Both the Sydney Morning Herald and Sydney Mail called them 'crude’.

Few paintings by Dennis and, unfortunately, no historical pictures, are known. The Mitchell Library holds the 1840 Portrait of Sir James Dowling and in 1983 acquired another oil portrait of Henry Smithers Hayes (1845). An attributed portrait of Robert Pitt Jenkins, merchant and settler of Bombala, is at Wollongong City Gallery.

Writers:

Bruce, Candice
McDonald, Patricia R.

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011