John Eyre (painter)

For other persons with the same name, see John Eyre (disambiguation).

John Eyre (c. 1771– ), a pardoned convict, was an early Australian painter and engraver.

John Eyre
Sydney Cove, a watercolor painting produced by Eyre in 1806, typical of his style.
Born	c. 1771 Coventry, Warwickshire, England
Nationality	English
Occupation(s)	Convict, emancipist, landscape artist
Notable work	The present picture of New South Wales (illus.) Views in New South Wales (illus.)[1]
Style	Topographical illustrator
Criminal charge	Housebreaking (convicted)[2]
Criminal penalty	Penal transportation – 7 years (23 March 1799 (1799-03-23))[2]
Criminal status	Conditional pardon (4 June 1804 (1804-06-04))[2]

Biography

Eyre was born in Coventry, Warwickshire in England. Aged 13 years in 1794, he was apprenticed to his father, a wool-comber and weaver, and became a Coventry freeman in August 1792. On 23 March 1799 he was sentenced to transportation for seven years for housebreaking, and reached Sydney in the transport Canada in December 1801.^[2]

Granted a conditional pardon on 4 June 1804, Eyre's early drawings are dated from around this time.^[2] He generally focused on urban landscapes, giving his creative output value as both works of art and historical records. Over the course of Eyre's artistic career, his work progressed from purely representative topographical depictions, to more artistic compositions with embellishments such as Aboriginal figures and ships at sea.^[3] This progression is typical of the developmental pattern of landscape depiction in the early colonial period.^[3]

He left the Colony as a free man in 1812; nothing is known of his later life.^[4]

See also

• List of convicts transported to Australia
• John Eyre (British artist) 1847-1927

References

1. "John Eyre". Discover Collections; History of our nation; Macquarie era; Convict artists. State Library of New South Wales. 1 September 2009. Retrieved 20 March 2016.
2. Rienits, Rex (1966). "Eyre, John (1771–?)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 1. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 20 March 2016.
3. Hoorn, Jeannette (2007). Australian Pastoral: The Making of a White Landscape. Fremantle Press. pp. 31–32. ISBN 978-1-920731-54-0.
4. MCulloch, Alan, ed. (1968). "John Eyre (1771- )". Encyclopedia of Australian Art. London: Hutchinson.