John Glover Statue
Public Art: John Glover Statue
Sculptor: © Peter Corlett
Description: A bronze true life-size statue of English/ Australian artist John Glover (18th February 1767- 9th December 1849). The sculptor has captured the heavy set painter in a typical artist’s pose, with thumb up judging the scale. In his left hand, he comfortably holds his palette.
Commissioned by: The John Glover Society Inc.
Date Unveiled: The statue of John Glover was unveiled on the anniversary of his birthday (and also the date he arrived in Tasmania in 1831) , the 18th of February, 2003, by the Governor of Tasmania, the honorable Sir Guy Green AC, KBE, CVO.
Location: Falls Park, Evandale, Tasmania.
Inscription:
John Glover
John Glover was born on February 18th, 1767 at Houghton-on-the-Hill, near Leicester, England. He became a landscape artist of high repute and a member of the British Society of Painters in Watercolours, of which he was elected President in 1807.
He first exhibited in oils in 1799 at The Royal Academy, London, and had his first major success as a painter in that medium. Continuing to exhibit at The Royal Academy, he sold his view of Durham Cathedral in 1812 for 500 guineas. He exhibited in Paris in 1814 and was presented with a gold medal by Louis XVIII. In 1820 John Glover opened his own gallery at 16 Bond Street, London and was very successful
Three of glover’s sons left England for Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), arriving in 1829. Two years later John Glover and his wife Sarah joined them, arriving at the River Tamer near Launceston on the artist’s birthday, February 18th, 1831. He was allocated land at Mill’s Plains, Ben Lomond (Deddington) where he built his home. The property, which he named “Patterdale”, is approximately 20km from Evandale. it is from there he painted wonderful Tasmanian scenes of his newly discovered “Arcadian” landscapes.
In 1835 he sent works to London for an exhibition depicting the scenery and customs of the inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land. In November 2001 one of these paintings, “Mount Wellington and Hobart Town With Natives Dancing and Bathing”, sold for more than $1.5 million. His oil paintings are on display at the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart, major Australian and British art galleries and the Louver in Paris.
John Glover died at “Patterdale” on December 9th, 1849 and is interred in a vault at Nile Chapel, Deddington.
Things You May Not Know About John Glover:
John Glover is known as the “father of Australian landscape”
He came to live in Australia at the ripe old age of 64 and acquired one of the largest land grants in Van Diemen’s Land at the time.
He named his new property Patterdale in honour of Blowick Farm, a property he once owned near Patterdale in the English Lake District.
John Glover had two club feet and weighed over 18 stone.
He started his painting career by copying paintings of the great masters.
His last brush to canvas was completed on his 79th birthday.
He was nicknamed the “English Claude” as he had a similar style to 17th-century French painter Claude Lorrain.
Each year Evandale hosts the Glover Prize for landscape painting of Tasmania with the prize money of $35,000 and a miniature bronze sculpture of Peter Corlett’s John Glover statue.
Controversy: In 2019 the statue drew unwanted attention after it was claimed that the face on the Glover statue was not that of the artist but of a local pedophile, John Wayne Millwood.
As the story goes, in 2002 Mr Millwood helped established the John Glover Society. The society raised $110,000 to have a statue erected in Evansdale. Not only did Millwood work closely with the sculptor he also stated that he dressed up in period costume and posed as a model for the statue – The Australian 2002.
A foundry worker said he was the model for the body but not the face.
Currently, the Beyond Abuse is campaigning for the statue to be removed.
References: The Australian, Painter or pedophile: whose face is really on town statue? August 3rd, 2019, Matthew R Denholm