John William Lewin (1770-1819) accidently missed the boat to Australia, and found himself embroiled in Australia’s first defamation case for his new wife’s alleged ‘loose ways’, but that didn’t stop the intriguing painter and naturalist from carving out a career from humble insect collector to Australia’s first professional artist.
Copies of his landmark publication Birds of New South Wales (1813) fetch upwards of $500,000, but Lewin’s remarkable achievements have mostly gone unrecognised until now!
The State Library of NSW is staging the world’s first comprehensive exhibition of Lewin’s original drawings and watercolours – many never seen by Australian audiences - when Lewin: Wild Art, opens on 5 March 2012, before travelling to the National Library of Australia in Canberra.
The exhibiting brings together for the first time over 150 of Lewin’s remarkable and distinctly Australian works, selected from the Mitchell Library’s renowned collection as well as other major national and international collections, including the British Museum and England’s Natural History Museum.
According to Richard Neville, exhibition curator and Mitchell Librarian, “Lewin was prolific, giving Australians today an unrivalled visual record of their past.” His book, John Lewin: Painter & Naturalist (NewSouth Publishing), will be launched in March to coincide with the exhibition.
Richard Neville is available for interviews.
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