Design and Art Australia Online

sketcher and businessman, drew several views of Melbourne and Geelong c.1856-64, including Dight’s Mills on the Yarra 1856 (Grimwade Collection, Potter Gallery, University of Melbourne). A collection of his drawings is in the Dixson Library and twenty to thirty oils and watercolours are scattered among his descendants (all unsigned, but the places depicted are identified). He was presumably the 'Mr. Masters, another amateur,’ who showed From Studley Park in the Melbourne Fine Art exhibition of 1862-63. The Illustrated Melbourne Post commended the care with which it was painted and the way in which 'the artist has studied the specific details of Australian landscape, with an observing eye’.
Joseph Masters was born in Witney UK in 1836 and arrived in Melbourne on the ship Asia in 1853. He travelled and sketched around Melbourne, Geelong and the Mornington Peninsula.
Joseph married Alice Lotherington in 1867. Joseph and Alice lived in Rochester Street in Kew and had 5 children one of whom did not survive infancy. She was the granddaughter of William Umphelby whose son, also William Umphelby, at the first land auction in Melbourne, purchased a block on the corner of Collins and Queen Street and established a hotel. This is now the site of the ANZ bank.
Joseph worked for Joske Brothers, Wine and Spirit Merchants on Market Street until his death in 1876 at the age of only 40. Joseph Masters is buried in the Boroondara General Cemetery.

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Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2025