Design and Art Australia Online

painters, were brothers. John Clarke, came out from England in the Harvey , a 300-ton ship captained by Daniel Peach, which arrived at Hobart Town on 2 May 1825 'in deplorable condition, her fine and valuable cargo ruined’ because of being detained a month by bad weather. He signed a watercolour view captioned Mount Wellington and Part of Hobart Town with Government House, the Court House, Church, Jail &c. taken from the Deck of the Ship Harvey, Captn Peach (Mitchell Library). On 1 June 1825 the Harvey arrived at Sydney, where Clarke apparently remained. He may have been the ship’s carpenter. One John Clarke, builder, is recorded in the 1828 census at George Street, Sydney. On 27 August 1827, John was joined in Sydney by his younger brother, James (1814-52), aged thirteen. James (sic) Clarke has three unsigned watercolour views of Sydney in the 1830s attributed to him: Balmain , Rushcutters Bay from Darling Point, NSW and Tempe on the Cook’s River NSW (National Library of Australia [NLA]). Only an unsigned and undated watercolour view of the Parramatta River (c.1840, p.c.) has been attributed to John.

The Sydney Morning Herald of 28 March 1852 reported the death of one James Clarke, aged thirty-seven, at his residence at Old South Head Road, leaving a widow and two children. A later, unidentified and undated newspaper cutting (NLA) states that James Clarke 'was noted as a musician, followed the profession of architecture and painted many pictures. One of the latter is now in the possession of the Mitchell Library. It is known that several pictures denoting scenes of old Sydney were presented to residents of Balmain’. The writer of this article, however, seems to have conflated James and John or possibly confused them both with the Sydney architect Francis Clarke (1801-84). The latter, who arrived at Sydney in 1832, sang in St Mary’s Roman Catholic Cathedral choir (although a Protestant) and had a wife who was a professional singer. He later settled in Bowen, Queensland, and became the town’s first mayor. It is, however, unlikely that Francis Clarke painted these Sydney watercolours and there is no convincing evidence that James did. John alone seems to have been the Sydney painter among this clutch of Clarkes, unless the real author was John James Clark .

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011