Design and Art Australia Online

painter and builder, was born in Marykirk, near Montrose, Scotland on 11 July 1802, fifth son of James Napier, a weaver. At the age of 14 he joined his uncle’s timber business at Blackfriars Bridge, London as a clerk, remaining there until he was 20. Although painting never became more than a hobby, during this period he is said to have attended 'the best schools of painting’ and to have spent two years studying works in the British Museum. Returning to Scotland, Napier worked as a carpenter in Montrose, both on his own and in partnership with the builder John Brown (later of Como, Victoria), with whom he migrated to Van Diemen’s Land on board the Lavinia . They arrived at Hobart Town on 5 November 1832, where they built several houses, including one for Surveyor-General George Frankland to Frankland’s design. On his arrival Napier saw the surviving members of the Big River Tribe being brought in to Hobart Town by George Augustus Robinson en route to Flinders Island and obtained permission to paint their portraits. His oil painting of Woureddy and Trukanini seated and clad in wallaby skins (p.c.), a larger oil Alphonse, the Tasmanian (QVMAG) and a portrait of Manalargenna (Melbourne Savage Club) date from this time. James Bonwick, a friend of Napier’s, later commissioned Thomas Clark to copy some of Napier’s Aboriginal portraits for his book, The Last of the Tasmanians (London 1870).

In March 1837 Napier chartered the Gem and took a cargo of timber to the new settlement at Port Phillip (Melbourne, Victoria). He decided to settle there and at the first land sale in June purchased a block of land in what became Collins Street West. He rapidly erected his own wattle and daub cottage ('the best house in the place’) then sent for his wife Jessie, née Paterson, another Scot (from Dundee) whom he had married in Hobart Town on 3 August 1836.

Napier and Brown continued in the building trade for a further two years. A house they erected on the corner of Bourke and Queen streets became one of several claimants to the title of the first brick house in Melbourne. Then he and his family moved to Dandenong Creek intending to raise cattle. They were rapidly disillusioned with the pasturage and soon returned to Melbourne; their third son, Theodore, was born there in 1845. The following year they moved to a 100-acre property in the Doutta Galla (Moonee Ponds) district which they called Rosebank. Apart from a visit to Edinburgh in 1854-60 to educate his sons and daughter, Napier lived at Rosebank until his death, on 7 February 1881. He became a prosperous Melbourne citizen and donated three fountains to the city.

In Melbourne, according to Leavitt, Napier 'painted several portraits of friends, and executed the first oil painting of a Port Phillip Aboriginal, called “Jack Weatherly”’. Several versions of the Weatherly portrait seem to have been painted; descendants claim the originals always remained in the family, and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria has another version. Napier was painting portraits of the Victorian Aborigines from at least 1843, when 'two oil paintings of the aborigines of Australia Felix, by Mr. Napier’ were displayed at a bazaar at the Melbourne Mechanics Institute in aid of the Wesleyan Chapel alongside 'a number of reticules and net bags composed of grass and the fibrous substance of certain indigenous trees manufactured by the black women undergoing a probationary course of civilization on the station of Mr. Protector Parker’. The portraits were praised for their fidelity of execution and close resemblance to nature, 'although, from the disregard he has shewn in the outlines to “light and shade”, we cannot but suppose Mr. Napier to be a young artist’.

At the 1869 Melbourne Public Library Exhibition Napier exhibited two oils, A Native of Melbourne, 1861 (presumably Weatherly) and Mary Queen of Scots , the latter a copy of a portrait he had seen in the Scottish Hospital, London. His portraits are stylistically naive and his figures tend to have over-large heads for their bodies, yet he seems to have captured the appearance and something of the personality of his sitters. Tasmanian works initialled T.N. are most likely to be by Thomas Norrington .

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011