Description

Extended Data

Birth Place

London, UK

Biography

Henry Rielly was born in Clerkenwell, London in 1845, the son of John Rielly, a builder/architect, and Sarah Hinson (née Beverly). He came to Australia with his family at age seven but nothing is known of his early training or experiences. It is likely that Rielly was a foundation member of the Victorian Academy of Arts which was instituted in 1870 by Melbourne artists to promote their work as he exhibited oils and watercolours there between 1870 and 1895. Rielly was on the Council of the Academy 1875-84. He is recorded as living on Eastbourne Street, Windsor, with his sister Isabella (Isa) between 1870-84. Rielly also contributed to the display at the Melbourne Exhibition Building in 1872 (which was exhibited in London the following year), the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1874 and 1876, the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879, and the Calcutta Exhibition in 1883-84. He later exhibited with the Queensland Art Society between 1892 and 1902 and acted as a Council member in 1894. Rielly had two sisters who were also artists. Louisa (c.1843-1929) married Oliver Dyson Aplin (c.1822-79) in Victoria in 1871 and came to live in Queensland around that time. Her husband and Dr John Pearce Lane (1815-1903) established the Severn River Tin Mining Company which was one of the earliest and longest running mining ventures in the Stanthorpe area of south-eastern Queensland. (The township of Glen Aplin is named after him.) Isa (c.1855-96) appears to be the more significant artist of the two sisters as a substantial oil painting by her, Water-fall at Mount Macedon 1880, is in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. She moved to Stanthorpe c.1884 and married the local doctor James Waldengrave Lane (c.1855-1942) at Warwick in 1888. Henry Rielly probably came to Queensland with her as both Henry and Isa gave their address as Queensland when they exhibited at the Victorian Academy of Arts from 1885. The magazine Once a month, dated 15 March 1885, reported that Henry and Isa had received medals at a Queensland exhibition (the exhibition was probably that held by the Stanthorpe Agricultural Society which was established in 1875). According to an article in the Border Post dated 8 July 1887, examples of Henry Rielly’s watercolours, the subjects of which included the local landscape features Red Rock and Two Brothers, were on view in the window of Mr Barton’s shop that same month. In 1888 Rielly sent a landscape painting of Ballandean, a settlement just outside Stanthorpe, to the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition. Rielly was certainly painting in Brisbane by 1887 as a painting in the Queensland Art Gallery Collection Enoggera Water Reserve is so dated. It is surprising, then, that the first time Rielly exhibited in the Queensland Art Society was as late as 1892 with a painting titled Kelvin Grove (now an inner suburb of Brisbane). It is thought Rielly may have suffered from tuberculosis and moved to Stanthorpe because of his health, as according to Jean Harslett of the Stanthorpe and District Historical Society, the town was known as 'the sanatorium of Queensland’. Henry Rielly moved to Brisbane in 1904 because his health had deteriorated further and he died there on 7 April 1905 aged 60 years. Like the other members of his family, Rielly was buried in Stanthorpe. In the years that Rielly exhibited at the Queensland Art Society there were three works which were valued at the (then) considerable amount of 52 pounds 10 shillings each: Ghost Gully evening (1894), By channels of coolness … (1896) and Purple, green and gold-at the foot of the Stirling Hill (1897). These works would be amongst his most substantial productions in Queensland. However, it has not proved possible to locate a description of Ghost Gully evening in contemporary reviews. This work, together with oil paintings by Isaac Walter Jenner I (such as The towing away of the old 'Dreadnought £105 pounds) and Godfrey Rivers ( Brisbane from Bowen Terrace £80), were the highest priced paintings in the 1894 exhibition. It is clear Rielly thought highly of this painting as he presented it to the nascent Queensland Art Gallery in 1897. In his book Images in opposition: Australian landscape painting 1801-1890 , Tim Bonyhady discusses Rielly’s work in terms of the “melancholy landscape”, a term used by the author Marcus Clarke between the late 1860s and mid 1870s to characterise the Australian bush. Clarke’s writings on the melancholic were widely distributed during the nineteenth century. In reference to painters such as H.J. Johnstone, J.W. Curtis and Rielly, Bonyhady writes, “Whether these artists were influenced by Clarke in their perception of the landscape is not conveniently documented, but their paintings sometimes appear almost as illustrations to Clarke’s ideas.” These artists offer an alternative view of Australia to Louis Buvelot’s sun-filled landscapes and also provide a link between contemporary literature and art. Bonyhady, quite fairly, places these three artists in the second rank of colonial artists but Rielly’s importance in the considerably less advanced artistic environment of Queensland took on an added significance. Research Curator, Queensland Heritage, Queensland Art Gallery Writers: Cooke, Glenn R. Date written: 2008 Last updated: 2011

Born

b. 1845

Summary

Henry Rielly established his career and reputation in Victoria but his work took on an added signficiance when he came to live in regional Queensland and began to exhibit in the Queensland Art Society.

Gender

Male

Died

7-Apr-05

Age at death

60