Description

Extended Data

Birth Place

Sydney, NSW, Australia

Biography

painter and architect, was born in Sydney on 4 March 1841, son of Samuel Smedley, a house painter and decorator, and Margaret Mathieson (also known as Brown). He was a cousin and pupil of artist William Dexter . In 1856, when only 14 years old, Smedley submitted a designs for a gold cup to be presented to William Randle, the engineer responsible for the Sydney to Parramatta railway; so did his much older cousin. Dexter was awarded first prize and young Smedley came second. He had also worked on Dexter’s winning design, drawing the panoramic view of the station buildings between Sydney and Parramatta encircling the cup (reproduced NSW Railway Budget 1905). At the presentation ceremony in Sydney’s Royal Hotel the subscribers were so impressed with the design and youth of the co-designer that 'they placed him on the table in order to get a better view of him. A purse of thirty sovereigns was subscribed in the room and presented to young Smedley as a mark of their appreciation of his ability.’ In 1858 Smedley painted an oil copy of Dexter’s Fire at Kent Brewery (MAAS). He provided an oil transparency on W. H. Aldis 's tobacco warehouse as part of Sydney’s celebrations of the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1863, which showed the combined arms of the Prince of Wales and the Royal Arms of Denmark emblazoned on oval shields overlapping each other … encircled by the garter and rose of England. The supporters are the lion and unicorn, with the motto “Dieu et mon Droit”. At the base of the design are two ornamental scrolls within which are introduced groups of cupids smoking their pipes of peace and happiness, lighted by the torch of Hymen. The whole is surmounted by the plume of his Royal Highness within a golden coronet, and the motto “Ich dien”, over which there is a circlet of bright stars. The painting was praised for its 'well-developed colours’ – a significant comment in the light of Smedley’s later work. In 1866 his father said he had made a large watercolour of 'the Burning of St Mary’s Cathedral [June 1865] from which Photographs were taken’ (evidently that now in the archives of St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney). After serving his articles with Sydney architect George Allen Mansfield, Smedley travelled to Hong Kong in 1866 and became junior partner in the firm of Storey & Son, architects and civil engineers. He continued to employ his artistic talents, painting scenery for the theatre of the Club de Lusitana and producing an easel painting showing the ball given at the inauguration of the club. He made a panoramic view of Hong Kong from the deck of the John Adams . On 8 October 1869 he visited Shanghai for the first time, then holidayed at Yokohama. He made sketches at Kobe soon after it was opened. Attracted to Japan, he began to practise in Yokohama as an architect and civil engineer in 1872. He was commissioned to provide the pavilions and decorations for the state opening of the first railway in Japan and sketched the opening ceremony – with some trepidation as it marked the first public appearance of the sacred figure of the Mikado. He subsequently provided decorations for the ceremonial review of the fleet by the Mikado at Yokohama. In his role as architect, he supervised the erection of the Imperial Russian Legation in Tokyo (1874-77) and designed the Catholic Church in the foreign quarters of the city. Smedley left Japan at the end of 1876 and returned via Hong Kong to Sydney. The following year he organised a section of Japanese paintings and craft goods for the Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition. He became actively involved with the Sydney School of Arts, where he exhibited his Japanese drawings. He also exhibited with the New South Wales Academy of Art (two watercolours of Nikko, Japan – Burial Place of the Emperors [ Shoguns ]). He married Annie Maria Casement in Sydney and they left for Japan towards the end of the year. Annie noted in her memoirs that the town of Kobe had 'great interest’ for her as 'the greater part of the European portion of it had been built up by my husband during his residence there, in the early days, soon after the opening of the port’, and that 'the whole place was already familiar to me, through the medium of my husband’s sketch book’. She also records their visit to the Japan Exhibition in December 1877. From October 1878 [his contract dates from 1876 acc. Clark] to March 1979, Smedley taught architecture and drawing at the Technical University ('Daigakko’) in Tokyo. On 13 April 1880 [elsewhere 'April 1878’] the painter Goseda Yoshimatsu met his former master, cartoonist Charles Wirgman, and was taken to Smedley’s house too see the artist at work, including his oil painting; he recorded that Smedley was copying Hokusai’s Manga and Famous Sights in the Yamato-e manner. An earthquake at Yokohama in February 1880 and a generally depressed economy caused the Smedleys to leave Japan and return to Sydney. Initially in partnership with Ambrose Thornley, Smedley soon set up his own architectural practice at 263 George Street; his private residence was 'Uyeno’ in Addison Road, Manly. He was Honorary Secretary of the New South Wales Institute of Architects in 1885-88 and a committee member of the Art Society of New South Wales in 1882-90. He exhibited with the Art Society in 1880 and 1881, when he was mentioned 'as one of the few new members’, showing numerous 'rather large oil paintings rich with the splendour and the havoc of the East in their blending of grotesque figures, uncouth architecture and brilliant colouring’. The Sydney Morning Herald commented that his painting of a Japanese temple was 'a good study of architecture and curious figure drawing’, but that best of all was a view of Mount Fuji. He also showed an English scene and a view of Mississippi Bay – 'proof of Smedley’s versatility’ (and travels). At the 1883 exhibition he showed watercolours as well as oils and introduced local subjects alongside Japanese ones, e.g. Fishing Boat, North Head and View from North Head, towards Broken Bay . A pair of Illawarra scenes exhibited in 1884 were considered 'gems’ by the Bulletin but the Herald critic had some problems with his unusual bright colours and impressionistic technique. Fig Tree, North Harbour was 'painted in such a slapdash style that it must be looked at from a little distance’, said the critic (conceding that then it looked very good), while his view of Bradley’s Head shown in 1888 had 'some extraordinary effects of colour’. (In one of John Horbury Hunt’s cutting books (SLNSW Q720.8, p.10) there is a cutting 'Smedley versus Anthony Horderns’ in which the architect J.J. Davey gave evidence, probably from a law report in the SMH 8 January 1887) Smedley participated in the 1888 Centennial International Exhibition at Melbourne where his oil painting Temple Grounds, Nikko, Japan was awarded an honourable mention. Architectural drawings as well as oil paintings were shown in the NSW Art Society’s autumn exhibition, with 'a correct and quaint representation of a Japanese Theatre’ being noted the following year. In 1889 all his 'bold and sketchy’ oils were views of local buildings, including St. Ignatius College, Lane Cove and St. Patrick’s College, Manly (the latter sold at James Lawson’s in August 1980). His architectural career, however, remained paramount. He designed many buildings in the 1880s, including banks in Toowoomba and Townsville (Qld) for the Bank of NSW, and the Wesleyan Church at Stanmore and the Waterloo and Liverpool Town Halls in suburban Sydney. His best-known building, the Sydney Trades Hall, was won in competition and begun in January 1888; it comprises the corner section and most of the Goulburn Street frontage of the extant building. Engaged to redesign the accommodation of the Sydney School of Arts and Mechanics Institute in Pitt Street, by September 1887 he had completed a ladies’ reading room, a smoking room and a stage in the hall – twenty-seven years after sketching Laying the Foundation Stone of the Mechanics School of Arts 1860 (photograph ML). In 1891 the Smedleys returned to Yokohama. There John made a series of watercolour sketches in the company of the English watercolourist Alfred Parsons (said to have been 1891 in Parsons’ obituary, but an error for 1892 according to John Clark). In 1894-96 they lived at Hankow, China while John surveyed the British, German and Russian concessions and carried out the city’s major drainage and sewerage works. Apart from a brief trip to England for a medical examination in 1903, he spent most of his last six years as an architect and civil engineer in Shanghai and regularly painted scenery for an amateur drama company there. His Sydney obituary in A.A.A. stated that he was employed as adviser to the Chinese Imperial Government on the remodelling of Peking 'according to Western ideas’ at the time of his death in 1903. A memorial service was held in Holy Trinity Cathedral, Shanghai. Writers: Staff Writer Date written: 1992 Last updated: 2011

Born

b. 4 March 1841

Summary

Late 19th century Sydney born painter and architect whose work was influenced greatly by East Asian modes of painting and drawing. He travelled and lived much of his life throughout Japan, Hong Kong and China, learning from and contributing to these communities through his artistic and architectural practice.

Gender

Male

Died

1903

Age at death

62