marine painter and mariner, was born in England, probably Manchester, but spent much of his life at sea. By 1853 he had settled in Melbourne and was working professionally as an artist at Alma Place, St Kilda. A committee member of the Victorian Fine Arts Society, founded that year, he exhibited eight oil paintings (including Ship Scudding before a Gale and Sun-Set in the Bay of Rio [de] Janeiro) at the society’s sole exhibition in August. All were for sale. Captain Robertson combined his painting career with that of master mariner. As captain of the steamer Lady Bird, he made regular crossings between Melbourne and Launceston from January 1854 to July 1855; his oil painting of the Lady Bird (1855) is in the Mitchell Library. The Hobart Town Courier called him 'one of the best marine painters in the Australian colonies’ in October 1856.
Robertson was acting secretary at the first meeting of the Victorian Society of Fine Arts in October 1856 and he showed two paintings for sale at its exhibition the following year: The Red Bluff and Hobson’s Bay, the latter possibly the oil painting now known as The Red Jacket, Lightning and James Baines in Hobson’s Bay (Australian National Maritime Museum). Robertson’s painting of Citizen entering Corio Bay was lent by Captain J. McLean. Both the Argus (4 December 1857) and the Age (8 December) commended the detailed accuracy of his ships’ portraits, both criticised his difficulties with perspective. He also exhibited at the Geelong Mechanics Institute in 1857, then at Messrs Baird and McDonald’s exhibition room at Ballarat in 1858. The London Art Journal reproduced a review of the latter exhibition from the Ballarat Times which commented: 'One very clever picture (by Robertson) has a ship standing in for Port Philip [sic] Heads, under whole topsails and courses, jib and spanker … The pilot-cutter is about to heave-to to put a pilot on board his ship; and the correctness of the details, both of the large vessel and the small one, would tell us, if we did not happen to know otherwise, that the artist is also a seaman’.
In the Argus of 29 July 1858 Robertson was reported to be starting work on a painting 'commemorative of the late regatta’. Portland 1858 with the Ship Francis Henty (1858, o/c), Marco Polo (1859, o/c) and Aldinga (c.1865, o/c) are in the La Trobe Library, while the Royal Historical Society of Victoria has a watercolour painting, Sailing Ships of the Nineteenth Century (1858), seemingly signed 'E. Robertson’ but thought to be by the same artist.
As master of the barque Eli Whitney, Robertson left Melbourne for Otago on 8 January 1862, carrying passengers to the gold-diggings in New Zealand. The following year he held an art union at Otago in conjunction with an exhibition of his paintings. In 1865-66 he was secretary to the Marine Board and inspector of steamers at Port Chalmers. Several of his large oil paintings, chiefly of famous clippers and other ships of the merchant navy in New Zealand ports, were included in the 1865 New Zealand Exhibition where he was awarded a bronze medal. According to McCulloch, Robertson died at Yokohama, Japan, about 1873; Platts gives the year as 1875.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
