Henry Williams

Also known as H. Williams
  • Artist (Photographer) , (Painter)
Colonial male oil painter, watercolourist and photographer from Hobart Town who painted children and hunters.
Talk | Version history | Updated Oct. 19, 2011 | Created Jan. 1, 1992
Name
Henry Williams
Also known as H. Williams
Gender
Male
Roles
  • Artist (Photographer)
  • Artist (Painter)
Residence
  • c.1864 Wagga Wagga, NSW
  • c.1835- c.1859 Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land, Tas, Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land (Tas.)
Active Period
  • c.1835- c.1864
Languages
  • English
Is Indigenous
No
Initial Record Data Source
  • DAA with additions

portrait painter and professional photographer, apparently worked as a painter in Hobart Town from the late 1830s. Several undated watercolours are known, including a copy of a Sir Joshua Reynolds’ portrait of a child (private collection), two separate portraits of the Waterhouse children (Joseph Brown), and a portrait of a shooter posed with a pile of Australian birds – reputedly John Gould (Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery). John Jones has suggested that certain portraits attributed to Thomas Bock may be by Williams, whose style was extremely similar. Later he seems to have worked as a photographer – Davies and Stanbury list one Henry Williams at Hobart in 1859 – then again as a painter. An oil painting, The Butcher’s Shop, Wagga Wagga (1864? Deutscher Fine Art), the colonial workplace of the notorious Tichborne Claimant Arthur Orton (London, 1871-74), is signed 'H. Williams/ '64’.

This entry is a stub. You can help DAAO by submitting a biography.

Writers:
Staff Writer
Date written:
1992
Last updated:
1989
associate of
Thomas Bock
1790
Artist (Photographer), Artist (Printmaker), Artist (Painter)
associate of
John Gould
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
associate of
Augustus Earle
1793
Artist (Printmaker), Artist (Painter)
(Portrait of a shooter posed with a pile of Australian birds)
(Portraits of the Waterhouse children)
(Copy of a Sir Joshua Reynolds' portrait of a child)
The Butcher's Shop, Wagga Wagga
Date
1864
Collections
Citations:
  • (August 1996), Australian Art: Colonial to Contemporary 1780s-1990s, (Place: Melbourne, Vic : Deutscher Fine Art, cat. 20 (ill.))
  • Davies, Alan; and Stanbury, Peter, (1985), The Mechanical Eye in Australia: Photography 1841-1900, (Place: Melbourne, Vic : Oxford University Press)