illustrator, painter and printmaker, was born in Mosman, Sydney, on 29 October 1893. He studied art with Julian Ashton and Elioth Gruner (1909-15), then joined up and served with the Australian Field Ambulance in France (1915-18) including being present at the Battle of the Somme. After his discharge, he worked as a commercial and newspaper illustrator in Melbourne. Encouraged by Harold Herbert , he also painted watercolours. At Will Dyson 's suggestion, he went to London in 1930 and drew illustrations for leading magazines and newspapers, including the Illustrated London News and Country Life , as well as for Oxford University Press. He studied at St Martin’s School of Art, and in Paris.
Wenban returned to Australia in 1938 and continued to work as a commercial artist and book illustrator, including educational books. Most of his known originals are watercolours. During WWII he was chairman of the artists’ branch of the Civil Construction Corps (other artist members included Dobell and Joshua Smith ). In 1946 he was living in Sydney and still working as an illustrator. In 1954 he was one of the 10 artists of the 'Melbourne Popular Art Group’ who produced a folio of 14 linocuts, Eureka 1854-1954 (Melbourne 1954), which paid tribute to 'the stand of the Ballarat miners in the Eureka Stockade’ (copy Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery). Wenban was responsible for no.1, a silk-screen portrait of Peter Lalor. No.s 2 (“Joe! Joe! The Traps are coming” where the mine shaft is like a crucifix), 4 ('The Magistrate’) and 5 ('On Bakery Hill’) are by Noel Counihan ; no.11, 'The Sentry’ (a miner guarding the flag at night) is by Maurice Carter ; and Len Gale drew no. 8, 'The Blacksmith’. Like Counihan, Peter Miller did three – 6 (“Burn the Licences!”, a group of men), 10 ('The Sly Grog Seller’) and 12 ('The Pikeman’). Ailsa O’Connor did no.7, 'Building the Stockade’ (and erecting the flag), while Pat O’Connor did no.3, 'The Licence Hunt’ (a simplified story). Ernie McFarlane did no.9, 'The Blacksmith’ (second version, to complement Gale’s); no.13, 'Trampling the Flag’, is by Naomi Schipp ; and the last of the set, no.14 'After the Battle’ (a mother mourning over a dead body), is by Mary Zuvella .
Wenban had two painting retrospectives: at Sydney in 1989 and at Melbourne’s Galerie des Arts in 1990, the year he died.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1996
- Last updated:
- 2007
