William Insull Burman | A Selectors Hut 1885
Photograph attributed to Nicholas Claire
Attributed to: William Insull Burman (1814-1890)
A selectors Hut, Gippsland 1885
Oil on canvas
34.5 x 45 cm
Signed lower right (WB)
Inscription verso: A Selectors Hut on Mr Stocks Selection, Croajingolong District, Gippsland, Victoria Australia. 1885
This painting seems to have been completed from a photograph attributed to Nicholas Claire titled ‘The Selectors Hut’
It is plausable that Nicholas Claire did not take the original photograph, but one of the Burman photographers did.
Burman advertised that he could copy, colour or renovate old photographs. Hence the possibility that this was a commission from a client to re-create the photograph in colour.
The painting is signed in the lower right cnr, and titled verso. This is a beautiful example of 19TH century life in Australia.
$9,500
William Insull Burman (1814-1890)
Burman was a professional Photographer, painter and builder.
Burman started out in the UK as a ‘House painter’ and tea dealer.
He migrated to Victoria in 1853 and was living in St Kilda by 1854.
By 1859 he was set up and advertising his services as a house painter and builder. In 1863 he set up a portrait studio with Henry Pohl in Chiltern. This didn’t last and by 1867 he was working with his son Frederick in a photographic studio in Fitzroy.
Burman and sons opened in Burke street in 1868-70.
By 1872 Burman was commissioned to photograph the victorian state schools. The result was three albums of photographs held by the public records of Victoria, where the photographer is not identified.
By 1873, is advertising as an ‘Artist’ in the McIvor News and that he had set up a tent in town offering portraits from life-size to lockets.
Burman advertised his services to ‘copy, colour or renovate old photographs’.
Burman died in Fitzroy in 1890, aged 76.
Many of Burman’s works were unfortunately destroyed by a fire that also took his grandson W.H Johnson’s life.
Revised bio from Joan Deer Dictionary of Australian artists to 1876.
