sketcher, came out from England in 1839 in order to marry John Mitchell, which she did at Trinity Church, Hobart Town, on 14 October. At the time her husband was superintendent of the boys’ penal establishment at Point Puer, near Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula, where they lived until the establishment was closed in 1849. The family then farmed on the east coast of Tasmania, first at Villeneuve, Buckland, then at Lisdillon near Little Swanport where she remained until her death.
Mrs Mitchell’s known work consists of very crude pencil scenes of the Lisdillon area, titled and dated but unsigned, and a few views of the Tasman Peninsula. She never exhibited as an artist but a descendant stated that she won a bronze medal at the 1866 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition for a pine-resin varnish soluble only in spirit of wine which she had discovered at Oyster Bay. Her art was for recording her personal surroundings to send to relatives at home. Some of her drawings are of real historic value, giving a wealth of local detail not available elsewhere and an unusually frank sense of place largely untainted by aesthetic conventions. For instance, John Mitchell was instrumental in bringing to Lisdillon many English farm workers, and their simple bush huts are vividly depicted by Catherine, eg Horrel’s House from my Window 1860 and Carne’s c.1860. A view showing Rose Cottage, Lisdillon Chapel and a worker’s hut in a wide and heavily wooded vista has a cross above one of its numerous trees and the annotation, 'This tree has since been felled’. Such earnest striving for fidelity, and such informative annotations, engage the viewer despite the artist’s sometimes incompetence.
The Mitchell’s had seven sons and three daughters. Five children predeceased their mother. Her first two, both sons, died in infancy and were buried on the Isle of the Dead at Port Arthur. Their mother commemorated them in a pencil sketch of the island, poignantly annotated: 'Ile des Morts – Port Arthur – Tasmania. My first two darlings lie here. Francis Keast Mitchell & Henry John Mitchell – first 8 months second 10 months old.’
With the exception of those few held in private collections all Mrs Mitchell’s known pencil sketches are in the Allport Library, although the Royal Society of Tasmania may have some in a large trunk full of uncatalogued sketches and paintings by her daughter Sarah Mitchell (on loan TMAG) estimated to contain about 700 works. The trunk is Catherine Augusta’s; it accompanied her to Van Diemen’s Land in 1839. Its present contents prove that the daughter (who worked at the turn of the century) was a better artist than the mother, but not much. Nevertheless, she too had the redeeming virtue of extensively annotating her drawings with personal details.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
Glover, Margaret
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
