James Wallis - pictorial material and manuscripts

fonds

1816?-2004

Graphic Materials, Drawings, Watercolours, Textual Records

455798

Textual Records - 6 manuscript leaves
Drawings - 53 ink, wash and watercolour drawings
Albums - 1 album of colour photographs
Textual Records - computer prints of text and images - photocopies; with one colour photograph, in ring binder : ;

VOLUME 1
Manuscripts and artworks from an album assembled by Major James Wallis

VOLUME 2
Album of artwork by James Wallis, assembled by his widow, Mary Ann Wallis

VOLUME 3
A catalogue of works of art by Major James Wallis, H.M. 46th Regt. of Foot (1785-1858) ... / [compiled on behalf of a previous owner by Barbara M. Mitchell]

VOLUME 4
Facsimile of an album of artwork by James Wallis, assembled by his widow, Mary Ann Wallis, compiled c.1988

Out of copyright: Artist died before 1955
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

This collection of artworks and manuscripts by Major James Wallis was acquired in June 2006. Based on the available information about the provenance of the albums, the format of the artworks, and a small amount of photographic documentation of (v.1) as an intact album, it is apparent that the items in the collection originally formed two albums. One was compiled by James Wallis himself (PXD 1008 v.1) and another (comprising mostly the larger watercolour drawings) by his widow, Mary Ann Wallis (PXD 1008 v.2)
Captain (later Major) James Wallis was with the 46th Regiment stationed in New South Wales from 1814 to 1819. He was the commandant of the Newcastle penal settlement from June 1816 to December 1818 and a trusted and well regarded officer by Governor Lachlan Macquarie. His main claim to posterity in Australian colonial art history is that he, and convict artist/forger Joseph Lycett, were the two principal visual documenters and promoters of the colony in the late Macquarie years in their illustrated volumes of printed views published in London in the early 1820s. Wallis and Lycett were also associated in several joint artistic enterprises when both were in Newcastle from 1816 to 1818, notably the Macquarie collector's chest.
For many years, the association between Wallis and Lycett has been considered one of early Australian colonial art's great attribution puzzles. A reassessment of Wallis' artistic endeavours and his place in colonial art history has been long overdue, but has been impeded due to lack of evidence in extant original artworks. One item in the collection is of the greatest historical significance. James Wallis' memoir, written in his own hand, of his friendship with two Aboriginal brothers, Dick and 'Burigon, Chief of the Newcastle tribe' is a unique document of its period for colonial New South Wales. This is even more extraordinary in the context of Wallis' earlier participation in one of the most brutal official punitive raids against Aboriginal tribes of the entire Macquarie era in April 1816 near Appin.

Reference:
Library correspondence file