In 2023, the RST commissioned a Statement of Significance of the RST Art Collection by Warwick Oakman. Warwick reviewed and assessed all artworks in the collection and produced a detailed report in the same year. A summary of the report is provided here.
Warwick Oakman is a Commonwealth Government accredited valuer. He has considerable experience in valuation of art collections, having valued the art collections of the State Library of Tasmania, the Allport Museum of Fine Arts, the Crowther Library, the Port Arthur Historic Site, the National Trust Australia (Tasmania) and Hobart City Council, as well as providing valuations of single artworks for all local collecting institutions.
The full Statement of Significance is available here.
RST Art Collection
Significance Assessment Report
Warwick Oakman 2023
The Royal Society of Tasmania Art Collection is of national and international significance primarily in the categories of 19th century Tasmanian women’s art (both professional and amateur), and for original works of art representing the First Peoples of Tasmania.
The RST Art Collection in addition contains extensive groups of works by seminal professional and amateur artists working in Tasmania from c1830–1860: GTWB Boyes, Thomas Evans Chapman, Anna Maria Nixon, WC Piguenit, John Skinner Prout, Owen Stanley and Francis Simpkinson de Wesselow. The works by Meredith, Nixon, Stanley and de Wesselow, held in the RST Art Collection, represent the largest and more important groups of these artist’s works held anywhere. Without the RST Art Collection, no understanding of those artists could be achieved.
These works, commonly in album format, represent an extraordinary filmic journey through Tasmania from c1830 to 1860, showing over time, the impacts of convict incarceration and settlement upon the natural environment, the nature and types of probation stations, the impact of Empire, and settlement types and structures. They are collectively an extensive, on-the-spot documentation of the First Peoples (the Palawa) and natural flora and fauna, of Tasmania. The extraordinary group of watercolours by Francis Simpkinson de Wesselow and sketches by WC Piguenit extensively depict wilderness in the earliest and fullest artistic documentation of these environments in Tasmania by Europeans after settlement. The RST Art Collection comprises primarily of works on paper, reflecting the immediacy and efficiency of that medium for accurate artistic documentation/production. This aspect contributes to the significance of the whole.
The most important works within the RST Art Collection are those works representing the First Peoples of Tasmania (the Palawa) by Margaret Legge and Francis Simpkinson de Wesselow. All date from the 1840s during a period of horrific cultural impact by Empire and population transferral. The works are reliable and personable images, dated and titled with the individuals being identified by name. The British Museum contains related works by John Skinner Prout. The John Skinner Prout and Francis Simpkinson de Wesselow works are inter-related, which is unique. They contribute immeasurably to the tiny surviving group of original art images of Palawa from this time. No other 19th century works focussing on the Palawa by a female European artist survive, such as the Legge portraits. These works are of enormous cultural importance to present day Palawa. They are therefore of international significance for their ability to contribute to an understanding of changed ways of life of First Peoples, and the ongoing impact of Empire/European settlement on Palawa. The fact that this group of works, in superb condition, with excellent provenances, is virtually unknown is extraordinary. Therefore, their significance must greatly increase and change over time with publication, research and further understanding by a wider audience.
The Royal Society of Tasmania Art Collection contains the largest and most significant group of works by Australia’s leading 19th century professional female artist, Louisa Anne Meredith. Louisa Anne Meredith (1812–1895 UK/Tasmania) was a miniaturist, water-colourist, engraver, poet, writer and botanist and was by 21 years of age supporting herself from writing and her illustrated books. In the company of her husband, she arrived in Tasmania in 1840 where she was to spend the rest of her life and produce her most important works. As an isolated Colonial housewife working in the Swanport district of the east coast of Tasmania she was to work extensively in the natural environment, documenting the native flora, fauna, topography and settlers’ houses of Tasmania at a critical period in the development of the convict system, transportation, and the British Empire on the cusp of the industrial revolution. Her accurate panoramas of Tasmania’s east coast, now largely the Freycinet National Park are of great significance in documenting the change in distribution of habitat and impact of European settlement. Her husband, George Meredith, as well as being a merchant/farmer was a politician. Louisa Anne Meredith actively took a role in the introduction of environmental conservation legislation and may be reasonably argued to be the first in the country, and one of the few women in the world at this time, proposing legislative protection for the natural environment/wilderness. Her work was widely appreciated and distributed throughout Tasmania/Australia/UK during her lifetime, embracing the latest technological improvements in colour reproduction (chromolithography), printing and illustrative format. She exhibited extensively at all 19th century local and international exhibitions – the 1851 Great Exhibition, 1862 London International Exhibition, the first Colonial art treasures exhibitions from 1845, 1866 Melbourne Inter-colonial Exhibition, 1870 Melbourne and 1880 Sydney Exhibitions, 1884 Calcutta International Exhibition and 1884 Tasmania Art Association Exhibitions. She was to win medals at many of these exhibitions, predominantly dominated by male entrants. In 1884 after the death of her husband, and in reduced circumstances, the Tasmanian Government was to grant her a pension of £100 per annum in recognition of her distinguished service to science, literature and art, via her nationally loved art and writings.
Her collection of art and drawings was acquired by donation and subscription, and placed in the Royal Society of Tasmania collections, for which she was elected an honorary member. Her work (and the RST collection of this work) is seminal to an understanding of Tasmania and its artistic and intellectual growth. By comparison with the other professionally trained female artists working in Australia at the time – Georgiana McCrae (1804–1890), Adelaide Ironside (1831–1867), Theresa Snell Walker (1807-1876), Mary Morton Allport (1806–1895), and others – none compare to Meredith’s extensive time frame for production, diversity of mediums, reach to audience via available reproduction technologies (then and now), volume and quality of production, and fidelity to the natural environment. These works in their day, contributed enormously to an understanding of Tasmania’s wilderness and the importance of conserving the flora and fauna that continues to this day. Their significance can only increase with further research, publication of the RST Art Collection Meredith works, and interrogation of her extensive writings over time,.
The Royal Society of Tasmania Art Collection is rare and unique to Australia. It is a coherent and focussed group. The majority of the artworks was collected around 1900, when, fearing that Tasmania might lose its individual identity after Federation, the RST set about collecting artworks, publications and other material that they considered illustrated Tasmania’s unique history.
The collection is of national/international significance for its contribution to an understanding of Tasmania’s unique flora, fauna, and First Peoples, and the role of women artists working in the 19th century.
Major artists represented in the RST Art Collection
| Artist | Number of works |
|---|---|
| Louisa Anne Meredith | 252 |
| Simpkinson de Wesselow | 207 |
| WC Pigenuit | 28 |
| Owen Stanley | 79 |
| John Skinner Prout | 75 |
| Anna Maria Nixon | 41 |
Total number of artworks in the collection is 940.
