GEORGE FRENCH ANGAS
An accomplished draughtsman, George French Angas’ skilful and novel prints of colonial settlement in South Australia provided European audiences with an early record of the country’s land and its people. Angas was born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, receiving tuition from natural history painter and lithographer Benjamin Hawkins (1841). Angas’ father established the South Australian Company (1836) and the artist arrived in Adelaide in 1844 to oversee his parent’s estate.
Angas is credited with holding the first Australian art exhibition in Adelaide in 1845. He travelled throughout South Australia, accompanying George Grey on two uncharted journeys. As a travelling artist, Angas rapidly recorded his subjects, adding colour notes and details as required for studio pictures. By 1851 he was working on the goldfields of Ophir in New South Wales and he was appointed secretary of the Australian Museum in Sydney in 1853, finally returning to London in 1863.
Angas’ publications and prints included Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand (1846), and Australia: A Popular Account (1865). They remain valuable scientific and social documents, as well as treasured records of Aboriginal rock drawings.
Angas’ work is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
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