WHO IS JOHN GLOVER?
John Glover was a successful British painter and contemporary of JMW Turner and John Constable. Today he is known as 'the father of Australian landscape painting'.
Glover painted in the picturesque style advocated by Claude Lorraine, taking the Grand Tour of Europe and wandering the moors and mountains of Britain in search of inspiration.
At the age of 63, and after a successful career, Glover immigrated to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) to join his children, arriving on 18 February 1831, coincidently his 64th birthday.
Glover obtained one of the last large grants of land on the island, settling at Patterdale at Mills Plains, Deddington, 20 kilometres from Evandale in 1832. Here he farmed and painted commissioned works for the landowners of the colony and landscapes for sale in London.
The quality of his painting changed in response to the strange landscape of this far-flung colony. He managed to capture its light and form with a freshness that preempted the Australian Impressionists.
Glover died in 1849 aged 82. He is buried at Nile Chapel, Deddington.
John Glover’s paintings are on display at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart and in major mainland galleries. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has a substantial collection and the Louvre in Paris also holds his work.
Clarendon, a National Trust Tasmania property not far from Deddington has Glover's painting, The Swilker Oak, 1840, in its collection.
Mills Plains 1836 John Glover (1767 - 1849)
oil on canvas 76.2 x 152.5 cm.
Purchased with the assistance of the George Adams Estate, 1935
Collection: Tamanian Museum and Art Gallery
