A watercolourist, Thomas Bird painted several Tasmanian landscape scenes that are now held in various collections in Tasmania. There is some uncertainty as to the exact identity of Bird as no artist of this name is known to have been in Tasmania but there are a number of possibilities as to who else it could be.
watercolourist, painted Brown’s River Beach (now Kingston, Tasmania) in 1850. The painting, in its original myrtle frame, is in the Beattie Collection (QVMAG). Bird also painted two watercolours of Tasmanian scenes, River Gordon (on the west coast) and South Arm and the Iron Pot (Lighthouse) from Brown’s River (1857, Van Dieman’s Land Folk Museum). No artist of this name is known to have been in Van Diemen’s Land at this time. The Wesleyan clergyman Thomas Fairfoot Bird (1843-1876) came to Tasmania only in 1870 (where he joined the Congregationalists). Perhaps Thomas was connected with M.E.Meyers 's erstwhile partner E.M. Bird and/or the architect Thomas Bird, who worked in Sydney from about 1835 to 1861.
This entry is a stub. You can help the DAAO by submitting a biography.