Alexander Webb 1813–1892

Alexander James Webb lived and worked in Scotland for almost forty years before sailing to Australia during the turbulent years of the 1850s. Settling in the rapidly-developing Victorian town of Geelong, it was not long before Webb made his mark on his adopted country. Through his enthusiastic participation in and encouragement of the growth of local art, Webb gained a firm reputation as a highly-talented artist.

This exhibition brought together a comprehensive body of paintings that illustrated Webb's diversity as an artist. A prolific painter, the surviving works by Webb are predominantly watercolours, depicting Scottish and Australian landscapes, townscapes as well as examples of marine views and religious paintings, that provide a glimpse of the various concerns of a 19th-century colonial artist.