watercolourist and police magistrate, was born in Scotland. He came to New South Wales in 1842 with his father, a New South Wales commissioner of Crown lands. Shortly after his arrival, young Robertson expressed his opinion of the colony in a letter to his brother in Scotland; it was written on Easter Monday 1842 from Muswellbrook: 'New South Wales! Umph! Horrible, what opinion will I give you, the scenery is an interminable wood of wretched stumps of gum trees, rivers O! O! who would call them rivers, stagnant pools in summer, and inundate the country when any shower of rain falls which happens very seldomly … [It is] not a country but a wretched hole, and I would advise anyone not to put their foot on a ship bound for New South Wales, particularly those who practise the arts and sciences’.

Robertson must have revised these opinions when he moved to Victoria for he lived there for the rest of his life, spending many of his adult years as a police magistrate at Castlemaine. At the 1869 Melbourne Public Library Exhibition he showed Mackerel Boats , The Raft and Coast Scene , all presumably watercolours. It was at Robertson’s St Kilda (Melbourne) residence, Ashburton Cottage in Blessington Street, that the Victorian Academy of Arts was formed on 10 January 1870, and Robertson exhibited a number of works at the first exhibition. The Argus noted: 'two very large watercolour drawings by Mr. James Robertson, the secretary of the Academy … represent H.M. ship Nelson under two aspects – the one a saffron sunset, and the other a sombre squall. In each instance the artist has been highly successful, whether as regards the central object, flushed with amber light which streams upon its huge bulk from the declining sun, or looking grim and sullen under the gloom of the rising storm, or as regards all its surroundings – the steam tug, the boats, the distant pier and the various vessels lying at anchor’.

His other exhibits, the Argus stated, evinced 'an artistic perception of the picturesque combined with the capacity to convey a good deal of meaning by the employment of very simple agencies’. James Robertson is said to have exhibited with the Royal Institute, Manchester (UK), in 1871, presumably on a visit home. He was back in Melbourne the following year when he showed The Wreckers with the academy. It depicted a dismasted hulk being approached by luggers and it too was praised, as was his 'charming marine sketch’ On the Saltwater River . These marine subjects suggest a connection with the older painter, Thomas Robertson .

After his retirement in 1873 Robertson continued to exhibit with the Victorian Academy of Arts until it amalgamated with the Australian Artists’ Association to form the Victorian Artists’ Society in 1888, then with the society until 1905. For most of these years he resided at Studholm (or Homewood) in Fellows Street, Kew. Many of his watercolour paintings, including Thatched Cottage, Heidelberg and a folio of Hawthorn and St Kilda street scenes dating from the 1860s remain with the Robertson family. Grace Park, Hawthorn (1872) was sold at Christie’s (Australia) in March 1977.

Writers:

Mackie, Elizabeth

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011