Description

Extended Data

Birth Place

Chester, Cheshire, England

Biography

watercolour painter and sketcher, was born in Chester, Cheshire on 6 January 1830 at 3 p.m., according to family records, the third (but eldest surviving) son of Lieutenant Henry Lloyd of the 36th Regiment, Bengal Native Infantry, and Charlotte, née Williams. He was baptised in St John’s Church of England the following day. Having visited Van Diemen’s Land on a year’s sick leave in 1825 his father, now Captain Lloyd, returned to Hobart Town in the Brothers on 22 February 1841 on two years’ sick leave with his wife, Henry Grant, another son and a servant. Captain Lloyd served a final two years in India, then retired in July 1844 to a large property at New Norfolk, Van Diemen’s Land, which he named Bryn Estyn after the family home in Wales. Henry Grant Lloyd spent his childhood there. In 1849 Lloyd became a divinity student at Christ’s College, Bishopsbourne. Two sketches of this institution survive dated 2 November 1849 (NLA) and 24 December 1849 (ALMFA). By 1851, however, it was clear that he was unsuited to a career in the church (evidently because he was homosexual) and Bishop F.R. Nixon refused to ordain him. Perhaps as a result of this disappointment 'Harry’ Lloyd was shingle-splitting in the Huon Valley in 1853, according to an entry in the diary of Mary Morton Allport – who thought it shameful for his mother. It did not last long. Lloyd’s chief occupation between 1846 and 1857 appears to have been sketching landscape scenery all over Tasmania, his earliest known sketch being dated 27 January 1846 (DL) when he was probably a student of John Skinner Prout . In a later advertisement Lloyd claimed to have been taught by Prout, an artist who provided an undemanding, picturesque grounding for a large number of Van Diemen’s Land amateur artists. In 1874 he announced the fulfilment of a long-cherished ambition to publish a book called 'Tasmania Illustrated’ in imitation of Prout, but it failed to materialise. A coloured lithograph after one of Lloyd’s drawings, Hobart Town from the New Wharf , was published by M. & N. Hanhart of London about 1859, but its effectiveness was as much due to the skill of the lithographer W.L. Walton as to Lloyd, whose draughtsmanship was never strong. By the time it was published Lloyd was living in Sydney, where he took drawing lessons from Conrad Martens , an influence which encouraged, as Evans notes, his 'distinctive hard pencil style overlaid with clear pale washes’. Described by Moore as 'Australia’s peripatetic artist’, Lloyd travelled indefatigably throughout his long life, obsessed with recording every landscape he saw. Despite some delicate drawing showing the influence of Martens, the majority of his works are rough field sketches rather than finished paintings. Their chief value lies in their interest as historical documents, for Lloyd was meticulous about naming, dating and signing his sketches; many even have compass directions. He was more successful with close focus than distant views, even though the latter far outnumber the former, and he certainly visited and drew places recorded by few other artists. At a conversazione held by the New South Wales Academy of Art on 9 November 1875, Eccleston du Faur was reported as urging the beauties of the Hawkesbury River, 'the Rhine of Australia’ Anthony Trollope had named it. Yet, du Faur stated, 'how many in this room have ever seen it below Windsor? ... Has it ever been illustrated, except, I think, at Wiseman’s Ferry by Mr C. Martens, and near its mouth by Mr. Slade [q.v.], and roughly sketched by Mr. Grant Lloyd of Tasmania.’ Other New South Wales and Queensland views were sketched in 1858-64 and 1875-80. In between Lloyd revisited Britain and went on a sketching tour of Wales, returning to Tasmania in 1872-75. He revisited the Grose Valley (NSW) for a few days in 1875, joining the painting and photography camps which Eccleston du Faur had established for members of the NSW Academy of Art and 'other gentlemen’, the chief guest being Lloyd’s fellow Tasmanian, W.C. Piguenit . A private income meant that Lloyd had no need to sell his work, though he did find a market for some of his watercolours. More important to him was the status and exposure gained through local and international exhibitions, at which he won several medals. He exhibited at the 1875 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition and the following year was included in the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Except for an Australian sojourn in 1887-89, he lived in Dunedin from 1881 to 1899 and travelled throughout New Zealand; his watercolour, The Terraces, Rotamahana, New Zealand , is dated 1881 (Sotheby’s Fine Australian and European Paintings’ auction 28-29 April 1998, lot 388). He exhibited with the Otago Art Society at Dunedin in 1882, 1884, 1886 88, 1890 95, 1898 99 and 1900 03, showed paintings with the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts in 1896 and was included in the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition of 1889 90. He also showed work at the 1891-92 Tasmanian Exhibition in Launceston and the 1894-95 Hobart International Exhibition. In 1900 Lloyd returned to Tasmania to take over the management of Bryn Estyn. At the end of 1903 this compulsive traveller was preparing for yet another tour of Tasmania when he was seized with paralysis. He died on 31 May 1904 and was buried in the New Norfolk Cemetery. His last known sketch is dated August 1903. Surviving drawings are numbered in the thousands. There are over 1,500 in the Mitchell and Dixson Library collections alone, admittedly the two repositories holding the bulk of his work. The Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts also has a substantial collection, while the National Library holds a sample thirteen watercolours. Writers: Turpin, JenniferKerr, Joan Date written: 1992 Last updated: 1989

Born

b. 6 January 1830

Summary

A prolific watercolourist painter and sketcher, Lloyd is known as 'Australia's peripatetic artist'. He travelled indefatigably throughout his long life, recording many landscapes in Australia, New Zealand and Britain.

Gender

Male

Died

31-May-04

Age at death

74