Design and Art Australia Online

painter, scene-painter and professional photographer, was born in Manchester, England, eldest son of John Waln Guy, a painter, and Eliza, née Bottomly. The J.W. Guy who exhibited a large oil painting, 5 feet 2 inches x 7 feet 1 inch (1.57 × 2.15 m), Coast near Frankston , at the British Institution in 1849 when living at 72 Charlotte Street, London, could have been the father or the 17-year-old son. James Waln Guy junior came to Sydney about 1856. He provided two drawings of the wreck of the Dunbar from which engravings were made to illustrate a locally published report of the disaster in 1857. One was a portrait of the sole survivor, James Johnson, the other a purportedly on-the-spot view of The Gap, North and South Heads, and Johnson Being Rescued .

A younger brother, John Arthur Guy (c.1833-1866), migrated to Sydney at about the same time. Although it is impossible to be sure who was responsible for work attributed only to 'Mr Guy’, James seems to have been the theatrical artist while John was a house painter by trade. When he married Jane Seaney in a Presbyterian ceremony at Elizabeth Street, Sydney, on 9 December 1861, John gave his occupation as 'painter’, a term then used to signify a house painter (as opposed to 'artist’, which John gave as his father’s profession).

In November 1857 James Guy was identified as the artist of the 'illuminated diagrams’ for Henry Merlin 's lecture on 'The Comet’ at the Jamison Street schoolroom and possibly painted the backdrops for Merlin’s lectures on 'Celestial Phenomena’ the following year. In partnership with Merlin he produced a Grand Panorama of India , encompassing views of Calcutta by night, Delhi at noon, Benares in the morning, Moslem and Brahmin religious gatherings and scenes of the recent Indian uprising. The panorama was accompanied by vocal and instrumental music and a 'vigorously written discourse’. Despite the grand scale, it seems to have attracted little patronage, the Month writing with disappointment of its neglect.

One of the Guy brothers also painted theatrical scenery, presumably James since this was an activity closely associated with panorama painting. For the production of Rolla; or, The Conquest of Peru at the Prince of Wales Theatre, commencing 14 February 1859, the scenery was 'painted expressly for this piece by Messrs. Burbury, Guy, and assistants’. Guy was specifically credited with the sets Gardens of the Royal Palace (Act II, sc.i), Peruvian Landscape (Act III, sc.ii and Act V, sc.i), Prison in Fortress of Cuzeo (Act IV, sc.i) and Spanish Encampment at Night (Act IV, sc.ii).

In July, James Guy’s large oil painting of Bathurst NSW 'taken from the Kelso bank of the Macquarie’ was exhibited at Buist’s Pianoforte Warehouse, 254 George Street. It sounds like his first colonial venture into easel painting. The critic Joseph Sheridan Moore congratulated 'this young artist on his really respectable achievement’ and added: 'It possesses considerable breadth; its well-toned warm colouring reminds us of more than one Australian scene, while the mere manipulation is bold, but unaffected. We need not add that we wish Mr Guy success.’

In October 1858 James and John together opened a photographic gallery at 290 George Street ('opposite the White Horse’), and as 'Guy Brothers’ advertised portraits at 5 shillings each, with case, in October and November. But this soon broke up. James Guy was in partnership with the photographer Arthur Green at 381 George Street in 1858-59 then had his own studio on the corner of George and Liverpool Streets. The Mr Guy who was paid £1 on 12 April 1861 for 'Painting Diagram &c.’ in connection with a recent exhibition at the School of Arts was probably also James.

James Guy died of tuberculosis at 47 Botany Street on 15 October 1863, aged thirty-one, and was buried in Randwick Cemetery. John, who was then living in Campbell Street, provided the information for the death certificate and afterwards took over the photography business. John Guy was called 'Photographic Artist’ of 132 Riley Street, Sydney, when he too died of tuberculosis, on 28 July 1866, aged thirty-three.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011