It's the story of a man through pictures, rather than words, just as he would have wanted. The current exhibition at the National Library of Australia brings to the fore an extraordinary colonial artist, known for the past 175 years primarily through his published lithographs, rather than his original watercolours and sketches.
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The exhibition, showing in Canberra until the end of January (before its Adelaide season), represents the first occasion on which so many original works by George French Angas (1822-1886) have been displayed since his 1846 exhibition in London's Egyptian Hall.
The exhibition contains more than 100 finely drawn watercolours of South Australian and New Zealand colonial landscapes, natural history and ethnographic portraiture, together with sketches, original documents and the final fruits of Angas's antipodean labours: hand-coloured lithographs published in his two magnificent volumes, South Australia Illustrated (1847) and New Zealanders Illustrated (1847).
The artist was the eldest son of the merchant George Fife Angas, a principal founder of the colony of South Australia. Angas senior had helped plan the colony since the late 1820s on non-conformist principles - freedom of religion and expression, no convicts, an idealistic attitude towards the original inhabitants, and land available to ordinary people at a reasonable price on the "Wakefield system".
Like other successful dissenters, he felt the obligation to direct his wealth towards society's betterment. The foundation of a utopian colony seemed a worthy aim, and his son's remarkable talent as a natural history artist (trained under Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins) seemed an ideal way to promote South Australia to settlers and investors.
It was on that basis that George French Angas arrived at Port Adelaide on New Year's Day in 1844. Aged just 21, he would spend a year in South Australia and New South Wales, and almost six months in New Zealand, accumulating more than 300 finely drawn watercolours.
Noting that most published works on Australia relied upon 'description aided by meagre illustration', Angas proposed to 'reverse this method ... into that of vivid illustration explained by brief description'.
Angas's initial aim was to "illustrate South Australia", and he had issued a prospectus to that end before departing England. He arrived in Australia at a fortuitous moment, just as the colony's first major economic crisis had passed.
Governor George Grey could now indulge his taste for exploration within the colony, and during the following eighteen months invited Angas to accompany expeditions to the Fleurieu Peninsula, the Murray River, Coorong, the colony's south-east and Port Lincoln.
Angas's first obligation was to depict the bucolic landscapes of the Barossa Valley, most of which had been recently purchased by his father.
Those first landscapes reveal Angas's strengths as an artist - his skill in choosing the subtler light of late afternoon or early morning, his ability to lead the viewer's eye from foreground through mid-ground to background by means of perspective and finely drawn detail, and his forensic depictions of natural history and ethnographic subjects.
Noting that most published works on Australia relied upon "description aided by meagre illustration", Angas proposed to "reverse this method ... into that of vivid illustration explained by brief description".
He supplemented his own fresh observations with data supplied by a network of contacts. With little background or experience in ethnography he turned to the amateur Adelaide artist William Cawthorne and the police-trooper George Mason, who accompanied several of his "journeys into the bush".
The resulting combination of accurate imagery and text has meant that long after his death Angas has been regarded as an authoritative source for understanding the material culture and cultural life of indigenous peoples of southern Australia and New Zealand, at a time when many descriptions were fanciful and many images verged upon caricature.
Angas's time in New Zealand during late 1844 was a fascinating interlude in his South Australian journeying. He was attracted there not only by the tales he had heard in Adelaide of "stately pas and decorated chiefs", but also a means of evading his father's directive to return home to London.
Once again, Angas had the benefit of Governor Grey's assistance in introducing him to New Zealand officials, enabling him to complete a remarkable journey by foot through the North Island, accompanied by Maori guides.
On his arrival in New Zealand, just four years after the Treaty of Waitangi, Angas realised that he would make no progress without the support of the Maori chiefs or rangatira. For their part, the rangatira understood that Angas's portraits would be presented to Queen Victoria, and with few exceptions they endorsed his work.
The result was another extraordinary portfolio of images, many documenting the elaborate carvings and architecture of Maori pas or villages, woven flax cloaks, canoe prows and other material culture items, soon to be displaced by European equivalents.
Angas returned to London via Rio de Janeiro in early April 1846, arriving just in time to install his exhibition of 300 finished watercolours, natural history specimens and artefacts in the Egyptian Hall.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were among the first visitors and the exhibition became the critical success of the 1846 summer season.
Angas obtained close to 500 subscribers for his two spectacular volumes of lithographs, and his future career as an artist and naturalist seemed assured.
The full story of George French Angas's antipodean adventures is told in a lavishly illustrated volume of the same name, available at the National Library bookshop or online.
- Illustrating the Antipodes: George French Angas in Australia and New Zealand 1844-1845 is at the National Library January 30.
