Oscar of Cooktown b. c.1877

  • Artist (Draughtsman)
'Oscar of Cooktown' is known only by the one book of drawings which was fortuitously preserved in the collection of the National Museum of Australia, Canberra, ACT. The forty pencil and coloured pencil drawings give a partially biographical account of Oscar's life, and a unique perspective into the colonial frontier in western Queensland.

Citations

  • 'Research undertaken by Kim McKenzie and Carol Cooper during 1991, with assistance from Bill Rosser, Alana Harris, Michael Williams and Vincent Brady’.

  • Cooper, Carol and McKenzie, Kim (2001), 'Legacy of a Goldrush – Drawings by Oscar’, In Stannage, Tom (ed) 'Gold and Civilisation’, Art Exhibtions Australia & National Museum of Australia.

  • Sayers, Andrew (1994), 'Aboriginal Artists of the Nineteenth’, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, VIC.

  • McKenzie, Kim and Cooper, Carol (2001), 'Eyewitness? Drawings by Oscar of Cooktown’, In McCalman, I.; Cook, A.; Reeves, A. (eds) 'Gold, Forgotten Histories and Lost Objects of Australia’, Cambridge University Press.

  • Carol Cooper (2005), 'Drawn by Oscar’, In 'Captivating and Curious: Celebrating the collection at the National Museum of Australia’, National Museum of Australia Press, Canberra, ACT.

  • Roberts, Tony (2005), 'Frontier Justice’, University of Queensland Press, QLD.

  • Richards, Jonathan (2008), 'The Secret War: a true history of Queensland’s native police’, University of Queensland Press, QLD.

See also

  • 'Cover image for Frontier Justice by Tony Roberts, QLD University Press, 2005'.

Initial data sources

  • Storylines Project, COFA, UNSW