Gilfillan was born in Jersey in the Channel Islands and studied under Sir Henry Raeburn prior to being appointed master of painting and drawing at Anderson’s University, Glasgow (1830-1841). John Gilfillan arrived in New Zealand in 1842, settling in Wellington and establishing a respected livelihood as a local artist. His depiction of Māori included the painting, Interior of a Native Village or ‘Pa’ in New Zealand, which was selected by Prince Albert for display at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London.
Read MoreMoving to Wanganui in the province of Taranaki, New Zealand in 1845, he made numerous sketches of Māori, providing a valuable record of its society and the influence of European settlement on the landscape. However, during the land wars in 1847, his wife and four of his children were massacred and the artist left for Sydney with his surviving family in 1848. Gilfillan moved to the Australian goldfields in 1853, completing drawings of his travels which were later reproduced.
From 1856 he lived in Melbourne, where he was employed by the Customs Department and exhibited with the Victorian Society of Fine Arts. Gilfillan’s work is held in the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.
