Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Sydney Heads

Sydney Heads

1854
Watercolour on paper
Presented by Sir William Dixson, 1929
DG*D 18

On arriving in Sydney, Conrad Martens was immediately captivated by the splendour of Sydney Harbour and it became an enduring theme in his work. He produced views from many different vantage points, but those from Sydney’s North Shore were a particular passion. In many of his works he also featured detailed studies of rocks, particularly Sydney sandstone, which he often used to frame his compositions.

This dramatic work is a departure in style for Martens, who is better known for his warm and serene seascape and landscape views. During the 1850s, he produced a series of dark and brooding paintings of wild, stormy seas and ominous skies. Tinged with melancholy, they perhaps reflect the personal toll of the previous decade during which the youngest of his three children died and he faced difficult financial times.

In a letter to his brother Henry in 1850, Martens writes:

‘I have done no oil painting for some time; my painting room is so cold in the winter that I have been obliged to retreat to another room to draw in, but which has no light for painting. I am indeed much disheartened about painting. There is no sale for anything in that way. Small drawings and lithographs and teaching have been of late the only way of raising a little cash.’*

While the colours in this work and the emotions it evokes are different to the majority of Martens views, there are elements which remain constant among his many works. Martens often included figures of people and animals in his landscape foregrounds. They help provide a human scale to the magnitude of the natural world. Often his figures wear red or blue to help, draw the viewer into the picture.

The State Library of NSW holds the largest collection of Conrad Martens works in the world, including pencil and watercolour sketches, prints, and paintings in watercolour and oil.

In Sydney, Martens first settled in Cumberland Street in the Rocks and gave lessons in drawing and painting in his Pitt Street studio. He proved successful in selling his watercolours to the Sydney elite, producing landscapes and views of properties for wealthy landholders. Yet Martens found surviving as an artist to be a life-long challenge. Always short of money, he sometimes paid off his wine bills with drawings.

Martens and Charles Darwin remained lifelong friends following their shared expedition on the Beagle, but Martens’ commitment to Christianity meant that he never accepted Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Conrad Martens had two brothers, both of whom were also artists.

Martens had a great love and knowledge of books. From 1863 he worked for a time as the assistant parliamentary librarian, writing in a letter to a friend in England: ‘My present occupation, I am happy to say, suits me well’.*


Footnotes

* L Lindsay, Conrad Martens: The Man and his Art, 2nd edn, 1968, p 15