Thomas CLARK

English 1813–83
worked in Australia 1852–83

The Western District of Victoria was a rich source of both subjects and patrons for Melbourne artists in the 1850s and 1860s. Thomas Clark first visited in about 1860 to paint two landscapes for pastoralist Samuel Winter of Murndal. One of Clark’s subjects was the district’s most famous attraction, the Wannon Falls on the Wannon River near Hamilton. That painting (Private collection), and his second version of 1861 (in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria), showed the falls from behind the cascade, with the view out of the cavern dramatically framed by the rock arch. Another four views followed (National Gallery of Victoria, Hamilton Art Gallery, National Gallery of Australia, Warrnambool Art Gallery): more conventional, they showed the falls from the front. The present work, long said to represent the Wannon Falls, actually shows the Upper Falls (now known as the Nigretta Falls) some 10 kilometres above the Wannon Falls. The Illustrated Australian News considered the Upper Falls ‘infinitely more beautiful and interesting’ than their ‘much painted and engraved’ rival:

On the one side of the gorge is a high perpendicular cliff of a species of sandstone, scarred and chiselled into many fantastic peaks. On the other multitudinous piles of basaltic formation rise, grey and grim like the walls of some ruined pre-historic citadel, between whose rents torrents of water are forcing their way. The view from the top is of phenomenal interest and singularity.1

Thomas Clark was a pioneer of art education in Victoria. He was appointed instructor in figure drawing at the Carlton School of Design in 1868, and was the first drawing master at the new School of Design at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1870, a position he retained until 1876. He was warmly remembered by his students, including Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts.

1 Illustrated Australian News, Melbourne, 8 January 1887, p. 10.

Terence Lane