Illustrating the Antipodes

George French Angas (1822-1886) spent 18 months sketching and observing in Australia and New Zealand between 1844 and 1845. It was a period of decisive and irreversible cultural change. The young Angas excelled at capturing the minute detail of plants and people, objects and landscapes, and rapidly assembled a portfolio of 250 fine watercolours.

In this fully illustrated volume, Philip Jones has used Angas's sketches, watercolours, lithographs and journal accounts to retrace his Antipodean journeys in vivid detail. Set in the context of his time, Angas emerges both as a brilliant artist and as a flawed Romantic idealist, rebelling against his father's mercantilism while entirely reliant upon the colonial project enabling him to depict pre- and early colonial ways of life.

Philip Jones has researched and written about Australian colonial frontiers since the 1980s, when he joined the South Australian Museum as a curator focused upon Indigenous Australian material culture.

Ochre and Rust, his 2007 book of essays on museum objects and the Australian frontier, won the inaugural Prime Minister's Literary Award for non-fiction.

George French Angas (1822-1886) spent 18 months sketching and observing in Australia and New Zealand between 1844 and 1845. It was a period of decisive and irreversible cultural change. The young Angas excelled at capturing the minute detail of plants and people, objects and landscapes, and rapidly assembled a portfolio of 250 fine watercolours. In this fully illustrated volume, Philip Jones has used Angas's sketches, watercolours, lithographs and journal accounts to retrace his Antipodean journeys in vivid detail. Set in the context of his time, Angas emerges both as a brilliant artist and as a flawed Romantic idealist, rebelling against his father's mercantilism while entirely reliant upon the colonial project enabling him to depict pre- and early colonial ways of life.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.