Eugene von Guerard (1811-1901) was an Austrian artist who came to the goldfields of Victoria in 1852. Settling in Melbourne he travelled extensively and became known as Victoria’s greatest 19th century landscape painter. Between 1866-1868 he published twenty-four coloured lithographs of landscapes of Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales and Tasmania of which the RGSSA holds a number.
Eugene von Guerard was born in Austria in 1811 the son of a painter to the royal court to Franz 1. He studied in Italy and Dusseldorf before leaving for Melbourne in 1852 attracted by the gold rush. After thirteen months at the diggings he returned to Melbourne and quickly established himself as a portrait and landscape painter.
Von Guerard believed in the close relationship between science and art as described by the great naturalist of the day, Alexander von Humbolt (1769-1859), who developed “plant geography” as a technique for the study of natural vegetation particularly in South America. Von Guerard’s landscape paintings reflect his interest in science and show the then new and unfamiliar plants with great accuracy. So much so his pictures have been used many years later to identify the original plants in areas of degraded farm land being rehabilitated to their natural state.
Eugene von Guerard travelled widely particularly around Victoria but also to South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania. He joined a number of early state sponsored expeditions which included scientists and so was able to see areas of untouched bushland and appreciate the scientific aspects of these areas. He recorded his observations in great detail in a series of sketchbooks. However he was aware of approaching development and often included explorers or settlers in his landscapes.
Von Guerard also set out to appeal to a wide range of settlers and investors with his lithographs which were issued in six groups of four between 1866 and 1868. Whether pastoralists, miners, land developers, geologists or those who just appreciated the spectacular landscapes that he sketched, he hoped to interest them all and attract them as buyers. As well as showing locally von Guerard entered exhibitions in Paris, Vienna and Philadelphia. In 1866 he exhibited his first coloured lithographs at the Intercolonial Exhibition in Melbourne and published the remainder progressively to 1868.
In 1870 the Austrian emperor awarded von Guerard the Cross of the Order of Franz Josef for his Australian Landscapes and in the same year he was appointed to a number of senior positions at the National Gallery of Victoria.
The following plates from Eugene von Guerard’s Australian Landsacapes, with their original numbers, comprise the RGSSA collection
1. Eugene von Guerard – Nature revealed by Ruth Pullin with co-authors for the exhibition Eugene von Guerard - Nature revealed, Ruth Pullin and Michael Varcoe-Cocks, published by National Gallery of Victoria, 2011.
2. New Worlds from Old, 19th Century Australian and American Landscapes, by Elizabeth Johns, Andrew Sayers, Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser with Amy Ellis, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut.
3. RGSSA Treasures, von Humboldt, Alexander - a first edition of Kosmos in two volumes,1847.
© The Royal Geographical Society of South Australia