Arthur Levett Jackson (1834 - 1888)
Documentary detail on Jackson’s personal life is comparatively sparse, a common situation for c.19th engravers, whose labour underpinned illustrated publishing but who rarely received the individual attention given to painters or draughtsmen. What can be reconstructed places him firmly within the skilled artisan class that supported Sydney’s expanding print culture in the mid to late Victorian period.
Born in 1834, likely in Britain, Jackson would have served a formal apprenticeship in wood engraving, a trade demanding precision, patience, and close collaboration with publishers. Training involved mastering engraving tools (burins and gravers), working on dense end-grain boxwood blocks, and learning to translate tonal wash drawings into systems of line, hatch, and stipple. Such training suggests a background in an urban craft environment rather than an academic art school.
His migration to New South Wales probably occurred during the great waves of skilled British emigration to Australia in the 1850s–60s, when the colonial press was expanding rapidly.
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Frederick Casemero Terry (1826 - 1869)
Artist and engraver born England and emigrated to Sydney and arriving in Sydney in the early 1850's. He was soon part of colonial society and became known for his paintings and engravings. This engraving is from his rare series Landscape Scenery Illustrating Sydney and Port Jackson, New South Wales printed by Sands and Kenny. Unusually set within an oval image they included views of Sydney town and the harbour, as well a number of country towns. Unfortunately the engraver had mispelt Terry's name and as a result it appears as Fleury. At the 1855 Paris Exhibition he was included with five other Australian artists in having his paintings displayed. He was then invited to exhibit in the Further Exhibition of the Society for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in Australia held in the Mechanic's School of Arts. By the 1860's he was established as one of best colonial artists and in 1861 he had been made examiner at the Mechanics School of Arts. Terry died at the early age of forty four and as many artists before him he had struggled financially in his last years.
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