39. James Crowe Richmond 1822 - 1898
Mt Egmont
Oil on canvas on board
60 x 91 cm
est. $10,000 - 20,000
Relative Size: Mt Egmont
Relative size

James Crowe Richmond was born in London in 1822. He attended University College, London, studying art and engineering, graduating in 1839. Richmond worked as a civil engineer specialising in railway engineering. In 1851 economic conditions resulted in immigration to New Zealand where he settled in Taranaki. Returning to England in 1854, he married May Smith. Returning to New Zealand in 1857 Richmond entered politics, becoming Native Minister. He later settled in Nelson where he and his protégée, John Gully became major exhibitors at the New Zealand Exhibition in Dunedin in 1865. In late 1860s he was sending watercolours to a Melbourne dealer.

In 1873, after the death of his wife, Richmond returned once more to Europe, this time with his daughters. One of his girls, Dorothy Kate Richmond, followed in her father's artistic footsteps and became a friend and colleague of Frances Hodgkins.

Richmond painted in the Tyrol and Switzerland, and was employed on railway construction in Algeria before returning again to New Zealand in 1880. Richmond was one of few southern painters invited by the Auckland Society of Art to exhibit in their inaugural exhibition of 1871.

Richmond returned to New Zealand in 1880, he is acknowledged as an important settler artist. This depiction of Mt Egmont is a rare oil painting by an artist who worked mainly in watercolours.

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