Artwork, other - Pen and Wash Painting, Beni Carr Glyn Burnett, The White Ship, circa 1933

Historical information

Beni Carr Glyn Burnett (also known as B. C. G. Burnett or Beni Burnett) was born in 1889 to missionary parents in Mongolia. When he was 15 years old he began training as an architect with a firm in Shanghai. He worked in Singapore, Japan and China before moving to Australia around 1933. In 1937 he was appointed as the Commonwealth principal architect in the Northern Territory. He went on to design a series of houses for senior public servants and military personnel which became very popular as they were specifically designed for the tropics - incorporating louvres, high ceilings and good ventilation. When Darwin was bombed in February 1942, he was evacuated to Alice Springs where he continued to work as an architect. He also became a Magistrate and Coroner in Alice Springs. In later life he was well known for sketching clientele in public bars. He died in 1955.

Beni Burnett was living in Sydney in 1933 when he produced these three artworks.

There were several photography firms operating in Sydney at this time who specialised in photographing ships and the shipping trade (e.g. Samuel J. Hood and William James Hall) and whose photographs were used by artists to produce ship portraits. Both of these photographers took photographs of the two ships in B. C. G. Burnett's watercolours

This ship depicted by B. C. G. Burnett in his pen and wash sketch labelled "The White Ship" exactly matches a photograph pasted into his personal scrapbook which is in the "Library and Archives N. T.". The name of the ship is unknown and B. C. G. Burnett may have taken some artistic licence with the colouring as in the original photograph, the ship had a dark hull.

Significance

This artwork (one of a set of three small artworks) is significant as an example of shipping (particularly the use of sailing ships) that were still being used as late as the 1930's in Australia. It is also important as its creator (B. C. G. Burnett) went on to become a well-known public figure in the Northern Territory in the late 1930's due to his innovative approach to designing homes for the tropical climate.

Physical description

An ink sketch of an unknown sailing ship moored to a dock. There are several small boats tied up near the sailing ship and a large steel freighter can be seen in the background. There is a faint wash of colour on parts of the sketch - the bottom of the ship, the masts and booms and the water at the end of the pier. The title (The White Ship) and the artist's name (B. C. G. Burnett) are written in ink in the top left corner. The back of the sketch is black card with faint pencil marks (overwritten in red ink) that appear to read "1842 A".
A page from an album belonging to Beni Burnett displays five black and white photos including three photographs of ships. The photograph on the bottom right is an exact match for the pen and wash drawing.

Inscriptions & markings

front - "THE WHITE SHIP / B. C. G. BURNETT"
back - difficult to read "1842 A"

Other parts of this item

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