Design and Art Australia Online

cartoonist, illustrator, painter and engraver, was born in England, son of the engraver Henry Cousins and nephew of the more eminent engraver Samuel Cousins. According to Platts, Thomas Cousins came second to Edwin Landseer in the examination for a Royal Academy scholarship, but for health reasons migrated to New Zealand in 1863-64 instead. An English watercolour of a cottage and storm by 'T.S. Cousins’ from the collection of Mrs John Bonython, Menindie, Adelaide, was auctioned at Sotheby’s Melbourne on 16 May 2000 (lot 323, not ill.).

After exhibiting at Dunedin in 1865, Cousins left New Zealand for Victoria. At Melbourne in 1867 he exhibited some watercolours at J.W. Hines’s shop in Collins Street, and he found work as an illustrator and cartoonist. In 1869-70 he was simultaneously chief cartoonist on Henry Kendall’s Touchstone and Marcus Clarke’s Humbug , both satirical magazines but of opposing political views. Patrons of the Turf , published in Humbug 1869 (ill. Caban 1983, p.12, King p.61) shows 3 rough-looking fellows at the races. Other Humbug cartoons (in Joan Kerr’s Archive, NLA) include Fashion and Famine 27 October 1869, 9, contrasting the wealthy going to the Mayor’s Ball and the destitute outside the Immigrants’ Home (ill. King p.47); ' The Political Tommy Didd 22 September 1869, 9; The Race for the Cup; The South Sea Sisters 3 November 1869; Which is it to be? 6 October 1869, 89; What Shall we do with our girl? / John Bull: “Don’t you think that it’s about time Victoria left school?”/ Mrs Britannia (with asperity) “Girls are inclined to be flighty, John; she’d better stop a little longer” 17 November 1869, 9-10.

The Colonial Monthly , when edited by Clarke, called Cousins 'a young artist of undoubted merit and ability’ and stated that his Bushman’s Dream surpassed all local illustrations in beauty. Later it was reproduced in the Illustrated Sydney News . His New Zealand landscapes in the 1869 Ballarat Fine Arts Exhibition were considered 'some of the best colonial paintings’ and labelled 'exquisite transcripts’ of nature by the Argus reviewer (probably James Smith). His watercolour, Flax Swamp, New Zealand , was shown at the 1869 Melbourne Public Library Exhibition by J.W. Hines, John Twycross lent Arthur’s Pass, Canterbury N.Z. and R.A. Armstrong sent two engravings (by 'Cousin’). At about this time Cousins was illustrating Marcus Clarke’s His Natural Life on its initial appearance as a serial in the Australian Journal ; Platts states that Clarke was often overdue with his writing and Cousins would be wakened in the middle of the night to do the required drawings.

Cousins showed work in the inaugural exhibition of the Victorian Academy of Arts in 1870 and served on its first council. The Coming Footstep was shown in the 1872 exhibition of paintings at Johnstone and O’Shannessy 's art gallery. By then Cousins had returned to NZ, where he continued drawing cartoons as well as painting. Giant of the Period/ The Workingman – an object of astonishment for the world and a subject of wonder for politicians shows four politicians climbing a ladder to woo the vote of a giant labourer sitting on a wool bale with a couple of Maori in the background (one saying, 'Oh yes! They always fatten a man up before killing him, Karpi’), signed with his 'TSC’ cipher and dated June 1872 (ill. Grant p.35).

In 1874 the Illustrated Sydney News reported that Cousins’s depictions of New Zealand scenery and natives 'have won for him a world-wide reputation’. Nevertheless, after returning to Christchurch he worked primarily as a portrait painter. A fellow-artist, Alfred Henry O’Keefe, described him as a 'big burly man in build, like a policeman, slow in movement but when painting he could get a move on.’ Although said to have inherited £20,000 from an uncle later in life he chose to remain in the Antipodes, dying at Dunedin in 1897. Occasionally he sent New Zealand views back to be shown in Melbourne and Victorian collectors continued to lend their Cousins’ treasures to local exhibitions.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

1989