Joseph Lycett : Convict Artist Mcphee, John (Ed.)

Sydney : Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, 2006. Quarto, cloth-covered boards in illustrated dust jacket, pp. 285, illustrated in colour throughout, academic text on the artist by John McPhee, Richard Neville, Roger Butler, Shane Frost and Martin Terry. A richly illustrated monograph on the convict artist Joseph Lycett published on the occasion of the travelling exhibition by the same name. A very good copy. Out of print and scarce. 'This book examines the life and work of one of Australia's earliest colonial artists, Joseph Lycett, who worked in Australia from 1815 to 1822, and was responsible for the most extravagantly illustrated account of the colony, published in London in 1824-25. His works in watercolour and oil are among the most important visual records of early New South Wales and Tasmania, documenting the life of Aboriginal people, the landscape and its flora, and the towns, houses and properties of colonial Australia from a time when there were few such competent artists in the colony.' -dustjacket.