watercolourist, was born on 29 November 1829, one of the eight children of John Barrett Fogg and Charlotte, née Newbury, of Bridge House, Aldwick near Manchester, Trimley Hall, Flintshire, and Hargate Hall, Derbyshire, England. The family fortunes must have dwindled over the years for the Foggs followed the classic pattern of retreat to cheap living in Europe. Sarah Ann lived in Mannheim, Germany, with her parents and sisters from 1843 to 1850. In a letter of 8 December 1848 to her brother Peter Parry, who was being educated at Müttlingen, Germany, she noted: 'I am getting on very well in painting’.
Mrs Fogg, accompanied by her four daughters – Charlotte Martha, Sarah Ann, Harriet Elizabeth and Frances Mary – and three of her sons -Peter Parry, John Newbury and James Alfred – arrived at Launceston, Van Diemen’s Land, on board the Aden from London on 20 November 1850. Mr Fogg appears to have gone to Victoria in search of gold; his death is recorded at the Ovens goldfields on 31 December 1853. Three years later Mrs Fogg became the second wife of Edward Dumaresq (brother of Eliza Darling , father of Amelia ), but they lived together for only a few months.
Sarah Ann Fogg was living in Launceston when selected as one of the Tasmanian contributors to the 1855 Paris Universal Exhibition. Her 12 watercolour paintings of the indigenous flora of Tasmania, a portfolio lent to the exhibition by 'J. Dalton Hooker R.N. M.D., F.R.S.’, were considered by the local jurors to be 'very beautifully executed, and not more remarkable for the great delicacy of touch they display, than for their fidelity to nature in tint and outline’.
In 1860 Miss Fogg showed 10 pictures at the exhibition celebrating the opening of the Launceston Mechanics Institute building, all apparently copies of European works. While living at George Town she contributed two copies, Sybil after Guercino and The Singing Lesson after Nescher, to the Tasmanian court of the 1866 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition. Her original Tasmanian views, however, are now considered to be of greatest interest. View of Launceston from Windmill Hill from John Eddie’s Garden (c. 1865, w/c, Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania), Quamby Bluff from Westbury, Tasmania (not dated, water colour, National Library of Australia) and her panoramic view of Launceston from the verandah of a relative’s house, with a telescope mounted on the verandah framing the view (1860s, w/c, ALMFA), are impressive and informative.
Fogg’s diary, begun early in 1878 when she was travelling in Italy shows that she took every opportunity to see art treasures on display and to record them in detail. On 5 February she noted 'My first lesson in “gouache”’, and the following day 'did views of Naples in gouache: pleased’. She mentions sketching the scenery and working on flower paintings on a number of occasions. By the end of June she was in England. There, on 24 July, she 'went to order a lithographic stone and get some hints, then bought materials for working’.
Her diary for 1880 reveals that she was sketching on a visit to Gladstone, Raglan and Rockhampton, Queensland. Back in Tasmania by the middle of the year, she showed her 'George, Cape and Raglan sketches’ to her friends, the South African subjects suggesting that she had also visited her brother, the Venerable Peter Parry Fogg MA, archdeacon and rector of George from 1871 to 1910. On 28 September 1880, while visiting Rev. J.C. Dixon and Mrs Dixon ( Eliza Cox ) at Beaconsfield, Tasmania, she commented: 'Mr D. kindly showed me the method of colouring photos in oil, & gave me notes, which I copied’.
In November 1880 Fogg paid a short visit to Melbourne to see the International Exhibition; in late December and early January she was briefly in Hobart Town. Early in 1881 she departed from Launceston for Melbourne, then left that city by ship, probably to go to South Africa. The diary finishes on 9 March 1881, but it is known that she lived with Peter in South Africa for many years. Sarah Ann Fogg died on 1 January 1922 at Pacalstdorp in the division of George, South Africa. Her body was one of the last to be interred in the St Mark’s Cathedral burial ground at George. Her will, made on 7 February 1881, included the bequest of her gold watch to Johannah Clyne Crear of Clyne Vale, Epping, Tasmania, a token of affection in a long-standing friendship between fellow artists; she had drawn a pencil and wash view of Johannah’s home in 1868 (Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery).
- Writers:
- Valentine, Barbara
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2011
