sketcher, illustrated Frank Kennedy the Australian Settler, written by the similarly pseudonymous 'Yarra-Guinea’ and published at Sydney in parts in 1847. 'Tufts’ drew the originals of two aquatints in the first issue (February 1847), The Mounted Police and 'Charley’ Spearing Kangaroos. The latter is very similar to a crudely-coloured oil painting on cardboard attributed to Captain Otway, suggesting that Otway and Tufts could have been one and the same – except that both painting and aquatint closely resemble the work of Thomas Balcombe in subject and style, while Otway is otherwise unknown as an artist. 'Tufts’ may also have been responsible for the drawings on the green paper cover of Frank Kennedy engraved by William Harris, a border of stock Australian images including kangaroo, emu, settler with rifle and Aboriginal portraits.
What contribution Tufts made to the later parts of Frank Kennedy is unclear. Extant copies (Mitchell Library) lack the paper cover that forms the title-page. Two illustrations, a kangaroo hunt and a kangaroo and a dog in a waterhole, are woodcuts; Frank at the Stock-Yard and The Overseers Hut are simple line-engravings. All four were also engraved by Harris but none is similar to Tufts’s work in the first issue.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
