Gustave Adrian "Gus" Barnes (9 May 1877 – 14 March 1921) was an English violinist, painter and sculptor with a significant career in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

, notably as curator at the

Art Gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...

Biography

Barnes was born in

Islington Islington ( ) is an inner-city area of north London, England, within the wider London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's #Islington High Street, High Street to Highbury Fields ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

, the eldest son of John William Barnes (1854–1909), a builder and plasterer, and his wife Ann Eliza Barnes, née May (d. 1956). Around 1890 the family migrated to

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

, where his father and William Neate (1848–1932) set up in business in Flinders Street as Barnes & Neate, modellers and plasterers. They specialised in

fibrous plaster Plasterwork is construction or ornamentation done with plaster, such as a layer of plaster on an interior or exterior wall structure, or plaster decorative moldings on ceilings or walls. This is also sometimes called pargeting. The process of ...

and pressed

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mi ...

, and their work is evident in the Steamship building, the

and

Savings Bank of South Australia The Savings Bank of South Australia was a bank founded in the colony of South Australia in 1848, based in Adelaide. In the early 20th century it established a presence in schools by setting up a special category of savings accounts for schoolch ...

, to name a few. On leaving school, Barnes had some training in modelling from his father, and was a fine musician, having studied violin under A. C. Quin, leader of the Adelaide Grand Orchestra. He studied painting under James Ashton and was from 1896 a member of the

Adelaide Easel Club The Adelaide Easel Club was a society for South Australian painters which broke away from the South Australian Society of Arts in 1892 and which re-merged with the parent organization in 1901. History The club was founded in November 1892 when a ...

. In 1900 Gustave travelled to Europe to continue his study of the violin, and painting under Professor Herkomer. Barnes obtained employment at the Doulton pottery works as a designer, painter and modeller, and during his evenings studied at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

South Kensington South Kensington is a district at the West End of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the ra ...

. In 1908, he exhibited a water-colour, "Suffolk Marshes", at the

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

. He also played violin in Sir Edward Elgar's second orchestra. His father died in 1909 and Barnes returned to Adelaide to carry on his business. Barnes did a great deal of

landscape painting Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction in painting of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a cohe ...

, much on rambles in the

Adelaide Hills The Adelaide Hills region is located in the southern Mount Lofty Ranges east of the city of Adelaide in the state of South Australia. The largest town in the area, Mount Barker, South Australia, Mount Barker, is one of Australia's fastest-growi ...

with

Hans Heysen Sir Hans Heysen (8 October 18772 July 1968) was an Australian artist. One of Australia's best known landscape painters, Heysen became a household name during his lifetime for his watercolours and oil paintings of the Australian bush, in pa ...

, and was very interested in black and white work. In 1915 he was appointed art supervisor at the

Art Gallery of South Australia The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), established as the National Gallery of South Australia in 1881, is located in Adelaide. It is the most significant visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of ...

and served classifying and cataloguing prints and drawings until 1918, when he was appointed

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

. He regularly exhibited rural landscapes with the South Australian Society of Arts. The gallery bought "Monarch of the Glen", "Morning in the Hills" and "Mount Barker from Crafers". He also played violin in

Hermann Heinicke August Moritz Hermann Heinicke (21 July 1863 – 11 July 1949), only ever known as Hermann or Herr Heinicke, was a German-born violinist and music teacher in South Australia. He founded Heinicke's Grand Orchestra and was the first conductor of t ...

's ensemble. Barnes took up painting at a relatively late age, and some of his work suggests that had he lived longer he might have reached a higher position in Australian art than is usually given him. Landscapes in oil were probably his ''forté'', but he was also a designer, a modeller in clay and an etcher, and was equally successful in all these branches of art. In his modest way he exerted a quiet but powerful influence on the development of local art, as exemplified by his lectures on the subject. He was a musician of considerable skill and an enthusiast for great literature, and very well-informed on a wide range of subjects. Barnes lived in the recently developed eastern Adelaide suburb of

Kensington Gardens Kensington Gardens, once the private gardens of Kensington Palace, are among the Royal Parks of London. The gardens are shared by the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and sit immediately to the west of Hyde Pa ...

, in his later years before his early death on 14 March 1921.

Family

Barnes married Annie May while in England in 1909 and his wife and two children survived him. In Adelaide, the family lived at West Terrace,

. Painter L. J. Barnes of Sydney, and Doris Barnes, eminent photographer of Adelaide, were his brother and sister.

Selected works

The Art Gallery of South Australia holds a number of his paintings: *''Colonel Light's residence at Thebarton, S.A.'' *''Frenchman's Rock, Kangaroo Island'' *''Hans Heysen painting at King's Sound'' *''Mount Barker from Crafers'' *''The Monarch of the Glen'' *''The Quarry'' *''View of Adelaide from the Reed Beds'' *''Morning in the Hills'' and the State Library has an early watercolor:
''Farm, Gilles Plains''
He painted backdrops for various exhibits in the

South Australian Museum The South Australian Museum is a natural history museum and research institution in Adelaide, South Australia, founded in 1856 and owned by the Government of South Australia. It occupies a complex of buildings on North Terrace in the cultur ...

. ''Mount Barker Landscape'' is on display at the

Carrick Hill Carrick Hill is a publicly accessible historic property at the foot of the Adelaide Hills, in the suburb of Springfield, South Australia, Springfield, in South Australia. It was the Adelaide home of Edward Hayward, Sir Edward "Bill" Hayward an ...

mansion. He built a large scale model illustrating the

Gallipoli The Gallipoli Peninsula (; ; ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east. Gallipoli is the Italian form of the Greek name (), meaning ' ...

campaign which was displayed at the Library, and a relief map, which went to the Department of Defence's war museum. He was commissioned by

Prince Alfred College Prince Alfred College is a private, independent, day school, day and boarding school for boys, located on Dequetteville Terrace, Kent Town, South Australia, Kent Town, near the Adelaide city centre, centre of Adelaide, South Australia. One of th ...

"old boys" to produce a bronze bust of their retired headmaster Frederic Chapple, which was presented to the school in 1918.

Sources

* Nancy Benko,
Barnes, Gustave Adrian (1877 - 1921)
, ''

Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...

'', Volume 7, MUP, 1979, pp 179–180.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barnes, Gustave 20th-century Australian painters 20th-century Australian male artists 20th-century Australian sculptors Australian art curators Australian violinists English male violinists 1877 births 1921 deaths Australian male painters 20th-century English painters 20th-century English male artists English violinists English male painters British emigrants to Australia