landscape, portrait and genre painter, was working at Boston, Mass. in 1831; his miniature on ivory of Mrs Cecelia Hamilton Clement dated 1834 (QAG) was probably painted there. By 1837 he was in Central America. He had a studio at Baltimore, Maryland in 1839 and the following year exhibited at the National Academy, Washington, and with the Artists Fund Society. Ten years later Sawkins left San Francisco for Hawaii, where he stayed for two years. During this time he painted a portrait of Kamahameha I from an old print for which the King of Hawaii paid him $100 (Iolani Palace, Honolulu).

In June 1852 the foreign minister of Hawaii, Robert C. Wyllie, wrote to the Hawaiian consul in Sydney, Charles St Julian, introducing Sawkins and asking St Julian to inform him of the country. In return, wrote Wyllie, Sawkins could tell him about the Hawaiian Islands. Sawkins spent much of 1852-53 travelling around the east coast of Queensland and New South Wales. The Mitchell Library has a collection of ninety-eight watercolours he painted on his various journeys, including Darling Downs Going to Warwick (1853) and Talgai-Gammie’s Head Station (1853), also on the Darling Downs. He was a skilful, precise draughtsman with a special interest in rock formations ( Granite on the Tomaeo River) and other natural phenomena ( Falls of Kimbah ). The National Library holds his undated watercolour, Wooloonon, Dr Jenkins’ near Tamworth [NSW] .

A 'series of beautiful sketches of the Sandwich Islands’ by Sawkins was shown at London’s Royal Geographical Society in June 1855 to accompany his paper 'On the volcanic mountains of Hawaii, Sandwich Islands’, read by Sir Roderick Murchison, Sawkins presumably still being in foreign parts. Possibly his Australian drawings were intended for a similar purpose, even for ultimate publication, but no record of this is known.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011