W. T. Jordan

  • Artist (Painter)
Nineteenth-century painter of colonial-themed scenes and ships who lived and worked in Sydney. Jordan's paintings, which were exhibited at both the 1870 Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition and the 1872 NSW Academy of Art exhibition, were praised for their elaborate finish and fidelity to nature.
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painter, was living in King Street, Sydney, and working for W. Renny 's Royal Blue House in January 1868 when the Sydney Morning Herald reported that he had painted a large transparency representing the landing of Captain Cook on the Custom House at Circular Quay to celebrate the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh. Although the Sydney Mail later corrected the attribution, identifying the artist as Knud Bull (who also worked for Renny), Jordan did paint a transparency for the nearby Water Police Office showing the Galatea and other ships in Farm Cove. He did other transparencies for Renny’s company; a view of Fort Macquarie may have been his work. Two brightly coloured, signed watercolours of La Perouse, Botany Bay (S.H. Ervin Gallery), date from the same year.

In 1870 Jordan exhibited an oil painting, Weatherboard Waterfall , in the Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition as an amateur. Several paintings were shown with the NSW Academy of Art in 1872, including Abandoned , an oil painting depicting 'an abandoned dismasted vessel, drifting heavily away on a stormy broken sea’. Although it was a copy of a popular painting by the English artist Clarkson Stanfield, it nevertheless attracted considerable interest. Jordan’s paintings were all praised for their 'elaborate finish and fidelity to nature’, despite some perceived deficiencies in tone – 'too clearly and brightly coloured, especially in the perspective’.

Writers:
Staff Writer
Date written:
1992
Last updated:
2011

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