An acquisition of drawings from the Burke and Wills expedition.
Groom, Linda
The Library was the successful bidder at the Bonhams and Goodman
auction on 7 August for two drawings that are eyewitness accounts of the
Burke and Wills expedition. The drawings Bulla and Koorliatto--signed by
William Hodgkinson, who joined the expedition at Swan Hill--depict a
dramatic confrontation between expedition members and Aborigines at the
Bulloo River, and the dry and desolate scene of the camp at Kooliatto
Creek.
The pictorial documentation of the Burke and Wills expedition has
until now consisted of the work of expedition member Ludwig Becker,
departure drawings by a range of artists, and later interpretations. The
two drawings acquired at auction are the first evidence that there was a
second artist on the expedition. Though Hodgkinson lacked Becker's
professional skill, his drawings are highly significant. By the time
Hodgkinson painted Bulla, Becker was near death; thus, of the
expedition's surviving eyewitness visual documents, Bulla is the
latest and northernmost. It is also unusual in its depiction of the
warring Aborigines and Europeans as equally resolute.
The two drawings are contained in an album of keepsakes compiled by
Miss Eliza Younghusband, the daughter of a prominent South Australian
family. The album also includes a love poem by Hodgkinson. He appears to
have been rather more talented as an artist than a poet.
After returning to Adelaide from the expedition, Hodgkinson joined
the relief party led by John McKinlay. He then settled in Queensland
where he became editor of the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin and married a
young local woman, Kate Robertson. Eliza Younghusband married in
Adelaide about the same time. Her album remained in the family until
1995 when it was sold at auction for $10 000, a price that reflected its
charm as a record of the life of a nineteenth-century Adelaide lady. Its
Burke and Wills connection was discovered prior to the recent auction,
where it fell to a hammer price of $240 000.
Linda Groom
Curator of Pictures, Pictures Branch
