Description

Extended Data

Birth Place

Bathwick, Bath, Somerset, England, UK

Biography

painter, illustrator, surveyor, editor and writer, was born in Bathwick, Bath, Somerset, England. He came to Australia in the 1870s and worked in Queensland as a surveyor. He married Marion Elizabeth Dye at Sydney in 1879 (NSW records give place and date as Morpeth, near Maitland, in 1878) and immediately after the wedding they set out for Townsville, North Queensland, where Edward opened an office as a surveyor. By 1882 he was in partnership (as 'Architects and Surveyors’) with the Danish architect Christian Waagepetersen, who apparently undertook most of the architectural work; Bevan referred to himself solely as a surveyor after Waagepetersen left Townsville in 1884. Their office was in the 'Bank Building’ (the legal offices of Roberts, Leu and North in 1987). According to Gibson-Wilde, Bevan was also editor or acting editor for a time (c.1884) of the Townsville newspaper, the Northern Standard . Bevan painted and sketched in Townsville. He also wrote and illustrated newpaper stories and articles – more than 30 are known. The earliest identified is a short story, Marion’s Love , published in the first Christmas edition of the Townsville Herald in 1881. The 1987 facsimile of the 1887 Xmas edition has Bevan’s short story, His Ward , with two illustrations: Hands up, you eternal scoundrel! (four male bushie card players) and Alice, dear, can you forgive me? Brief biographies of Bevan and the paper’s photographer William Rowe by Dorothy Gibson-Wilde are included in the prelims. Although Bevan’s settings for his melodramatic illustrated stories and articles range from Paris to the South Seas, many have North Queensland backgrounds. A number are based on fact, e.g. The First Man Speared refers to the adventurer Christy Palmerston, while well-known Townsville figures Robert Philp, John Parkes, Andrew Ball and others can be recognised in The Recidivistes , according to Gibson-Wilde. Bevan moved to Sydney in 1888 to join the staff of the Illustrated Sydney News as both a writer and an artist. Later he became editor of the paper. He had been exhibiting with the Sydney Royal Art Society from 1883, and he showed work with the Art Society of NSW in 1887. Few of his paintings – chiefly watercolours – have been located. His oil painting of Townsville in 1886, probably exhibited in Brisbane the same year, was purchased by the Townsville merchant and Qld MP William Villiers Brown (now in the John Oxley Library). Commenting on the 1890 Art Society Exhibition, the SMH critic noted: “Mr Edward Bevan has also some good work, including Smoke Oh! a timber-cutter pausing in his work for a quiet pipe” ( Sydney Morning Herald 13 September 1890, 5). In the 1891 National Art Gallery of NSW competition for watercolours illustrating Picturesque NSW: “Mr Bevan sends a fine view of Mt Kosciusko” ( Illustrated Sydney News 5 December 1891, 12). “Mr Edward Bevan’s Mount Kosciusko and the Valley of the Upper Murray (no.6) is not quite convincing with its blue, transparent water, but it is pretty: and he does good work in no.67 The Carryong Valley, Upper Murray , in which the water is well-treated and the grassy foreground excellent” ( Sydney Morning Herald 5 September 1891, p.5). At the 1892 Art Society of NSW Exhibition: “In the water-colour section two of the best pictures (by Mr Hanson and by Mr Bevan) have been purchased by the trustees of the Art Gallery” ( Sydney Morning Herald , 2 September 1892, p.2). The other work chosen by the trustees is neither so valuable nor so interesting as that by Mr Hanson, though well painted. A Preliminary Puff (no.202) by Mr Edward Bevan, shows the figure of an aged axeman, who has paused in his work to light his pipe. There is character in the old face, and the foreground of leafy plants and weeds gives technical value to the work. This is Mr Bevan’s best picture. He sends also no.248, Old Ben’s Landing, Scotland Island , a picturesque view in spite of the too abundant expanse of rock in the foreground; and meritorious, though the shadows on the water are too pronounced. That this section is not so strong as the oils is attested by the fact that the artists who exhibit in both are less successful with their water-colours ( Sydney Morning Herald , 3 September 1892, p.6). “Edward Bevan exhibits many good watercolours showing great improvement and is strongest in his 'Preliminary Puff’” ( Illustrated Sydney News 3 September 1892, 4; see also Illustrated Sydney News , 10 September 1892, p.6 or 7). “The two drawings purchased for the Art Gallery A Preliminary Puff (202) by Mr Edward Bevan; ... are perhaps the best choice that could have been made” ( Bulletin 10 September 1892, 5). Bevan was one of the judges of the Fine Art Section in the 1892 Bathurst Show. He wrote and illustrated an article, Art at the Antipodes , published in the 1893 annual, The Antipodean (London, 1893, 74-86). In the fourteenth annual exhibition of the Art Society of NSW in 1893: “Edward Bevan contributes several very excellent works of which no.137 Broughton Vale is in our opinion his best, and will compare favorably with anything in the collection” ( Illustrated Sydney News 2 September 1893, p.3). He was elected a Council member of the Art Society of NSW in 1894. At the 1895 Art Society of NSW exhibition: “Mr Edward Bevan’s Grey Dawn , in which a stockman watches the kindling fire, deservedly attracts attention” ( Sydney Morning Herald 28 September 1895, p.7). “The various phases of bush life are truthfully illustrated by Mr Edward Bevan, in some half-score of water-colors, all racy of the campfire, the 'billy’, the 'sundowner’ and the 'swag’, and are sure to find a numerous circle of admirers” ( Bulletin 5 October 1895, 20). Gibson-Wilde says Bevan may have revisted England in the 1890s, although he died at Galston, NSW, on 2 March 1898. Writers: Staff Writer Date written: 1996 Last updated: 2007

Born

b. 1854

Summary

Arriving from England in the 1870s, Edward Bevan moved to Townsville and established himself as a surveyor and later as a newspaper editor. He was a regular exhibitor with the Art Society of New South Wales.

Gender

Male

Died

2 March 1898

Age at death

44