Joseph Backler (24 May 1813 – 22 October 1895) was an English-born Australian painter. Transported to Australia as a
convict in 1832, he obtained a
ticket of leave in 1842 and was active as a painter from 1842 to 1880.
Early life and transportation
Joseph Backler, son of Joseph and Jane Backler, was born in London in 1813.
His father was also a painter
and Backler was apprenticed to him for some time.
After his trial on three counts of forgery and passing forged cheques on 30 June 1831,
he was convicted of passing
forged cheques and sentenced to death.
This sentence was
commuted to
transportation for life.
Life in Australia
Backler arrived in Sydney on board the ''Portland'' on 25 May 1832
and was assigned to the Department of Surveyor General
Sir Thomas Mitchell.
Within a year he was sent to the
penal settlement at
Port Macquarie as a punishment for further crimes committed in the colony.
He spent nine years in Port Macquarie, during which time he received further punishment for misbehaviour
but also had an opportunity to paint at least six landscape paintings of Port Macquarie.
Backler obtained a ticket of leave in 1842 and shortly afterwards was married to Margaret Magner.
In 1843, Backler obtained permission to move to Sydney
on the condition that he remained in the employment of Messrs Cetta & Hughes, frame makers, carvers and gilders with an office on
George Street.
He remained in Sydney until August 1845, when he travelled to
Goulburn (almost one year before being granted official approval to live and work outside Sydney).
During the late 1840s he also travelled to
Yass
Yass may refer to:
People
* Catherine Yass (born 1963), painter
* Yazz, a British pop singer from the 1980s and 1990s
* Jeff Yass (born 1956), options trader, managing director and one of the five founders of the Philadelphia-based Susquehanna I ...
,
Bathurst,
Maitland and
Newcastle painting portraits and landscapes, activities which he claimed during his insolvency proceedings in 1849 had caused him financial hardship.
He continued to travel around
New South Wales and
Queensland for much of his career as a painter.
In 1868 Backler had a dispute with Kehlet over payment for some portraits. Following the death of his first wife Margaret in 1852,
he married Sarah Tincer (possibly within a year of Margaret's death).
By 1882 Backler had returned to Sydney, where he worked as a portrait painter and based his work on photography.
He died in October 1895 and was buried at
Waverley Cemetery.
He was survived by his second wife Sarah.
As a painter
Backler's portraits were all in oil. His style of composition, with a focus on the detail of costume and realistic depiction of his subjects (sometimes unflattering),
owed its genesis to the flourishing genre of provincial English portraiture.
Backler's portraits are similar in style to the kinds of portraits which similar families in similar social positions in England – the successful working classes or lower middle classes – could have commissioned from local English portrait painters.
He was not very involved in the Sydney art scene.
Landscapes
File:St. Thomas' Church, Port Macquarie, 1832-1842 Joseph Backler a7469002h.jpg, St. Thomas' Church, Port Macquarie, New South Wales c.1832–1842
File:Bathurst , c.1847-57 painted by Joseph Backler a928569h.jpg, Bathurst, New South Wales c.1847–1857
Portraits
File:James Dunlop, ca. 1843 oil portrait by Joseph Backler a2448001h.jpg, James Dunlop
(1843)
File:Alexander Sinclair , 1846 oil portrait by Joseph Backler a3151002h.jpg, Alexander Sinclair
(1846)
File:Sarah Cobcroft 1856 Backler a928715.jpg, Sarah Cobcroft
Sarah Cobcroft (1772 – 1857) was a midwife and farmer who emigrated from England to Australia. She arrived in the Colony of New South Wales on 28 June 1790 aboard ''Neptune'', as part of the Second Fleet.
Biography
Sarah Cobcroft (née Smith ...
(1856)
File:Joseph Backler - Captain Cook on the coast of New South Wales - Google Art Project.jpg, Captain James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...
(1860)
File:James Richard Styles painted by Joseph Backler a128370h.jpg, James Richard Styles
(date unknown)
File:Christina Sinclair oil portrait by Joseph Backler a928579h.jpg, Christina Sinclair
(date unknown)
File:Hannah Watson oil portrait by Joseph Backler a128164h.jpg, Hannah Watson
(date unknown)
See also
*
List of convicts transported to Australia
References
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Backler, Joseph
Convicts transported to Australia
1813 births
1895 deaths
Australian landscape painters
Australian portrait painters
19th-century Australian painters
19th-century Australian male artists
English fraudsters
Australian male painters
19th-century English businesspeople
People convicted of forgery
Burials at Waverley Cemetery