watercolour painter, was an itinerant artist who travelled around New South Wales in the 1860s painting homesteads and views – a 'gentleman swaggie’, recollected a descendant of one of his clients. In about 1863 he was at Henry and Harriette Wallace’s property, Eunonyhareenyha, Wagga Wagga, where he produced a set of three watercolour and gouache views. One shows the homestead with Harriette Wallace and her daughter Mary Louise in the foreground; the second is a distant view of the house, set above the Murrumbidgee River where members of the family are fishing and rowing; and the third depicts the outbuildings and the Oura Road on the northern side of the property along which a swagman (doubtless Grindell himself) is trudging. Signed 'R. Grindell pinx’, all remain with the family for whom they were painted. The artist may have been a son of James Grindell, who was in New Zealand from the 1840s successively working as explorer, settler, hotel proprietor and government interpreter (from 1848) and editing the Maori , the newspaper at Hawke’s Bay. A watercolour of the Maori meeting house at Arawata (Palmerston North Public Library) is said to be by James Grindell.
This entry is a stub. You can help the DAAO by submitting a biography.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
