Sydney Parkinson
Template:Short description Template:For Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox person Sydney Parkinson (Template:CircaTemplate:Snd26 January 1771) was a Scottish botanical illustrator and natural history artist. He was the first European artist to visit Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti.<ref>Paul Barker, "Wide-eyes on a painted ocean", The Guardian, republished in Sydney Morning Herald, 10 July 1999, Spectrum, p. 13s</ref> Parkinson was the first Quaker to visit New Zealand.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:Botanist
Early life and family
Parkinson was born in Edinburgh; his parents were the Edinburgh brewer Joel Parkinson, a Quaker, and his wife Elizabeth.Template:Sfn His birth year is usually given as Template:Circa, but is somewhat suspect as his mother was born Template:Circa.Template:Sfn He had a brother, Stanfield, and a sister, whose name was Britannia.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The parents were members of the Edinburgh meeting of Quakers; John Fothergill was another member.Template:Sfn Parkinson's father died in 1749, leaving the family in financial difficulties.Template:Sfn Parkinson became apprentice of a woollen draper. According to his brother, he took "a particular delight in drawing flowers, fruits and other objects of natural history", becoming "so great a proficient in that stile of painting, as to attract the notice of the most celebrated botanists."Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn While no direct evidence exists that Parkinson received formal training in art, he has been connected to William Delacour, who taught drawing and design at the Trustees' Academy, and may have been influenced by other Edinburgh artists.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
London
The family moved to London Template:Circa, where Parkinson's brother Stanfield worked as an upholsterer.Template:Sfn In 1765 and 1766, some of Parkinson's flower paintings and drawings were shown at Free Society of Artists exhibitions.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Parkinson began to give drawing lessons,Template:Sfn and the Scottish nurseryman James Lee, a fellow Quaker, employed him as teacher to his daughter Ann.Template:Sfn Lee introduced Parkinson to Joseph Banks in 1767.Template:Sfn Through Banks, Parkinson also established contact with the zoologist Thomas Pennant.Template:Sfn Parkinson produced copies of some animal paintings in the collection of Joan Gideon Loten, which were later published in some of Pennant's zoological books.Template:Sfn His watercolours of birds of the Loten collection were painted in 1767, either from specimens or from drawings.Template:Sfn Together with a fellow artist, Peter Paillou, Parkinson worked for Banks on the latter's collections from his 1766 voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador.Template:Sfn He produced drawings and watercolour paintings of animals, from specimens preserved in alcohol or stuffed birds.Template:Sfn When Banks planned a voyage to Sweden in order to meet Linnaeus in Uppsala and to see Lapland, he intended to take Parkinson as his draughtsman.Template:Sfn
Voyage with Captain Cook
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Parkinson was employed by Joseph Banks to travel with him on James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific in 1768,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> in HMS Endeavour. Parkinson made nearly a thousand drawings of plants and animals collected by Banks and Daniel Solander on the voyage.<ref name="zanan">Template:Cite book</ref> He had to work in difficult conditions, living and working in a small cabin surrounded by hundreds of specimens. In Tahiti, he was plagued by swarms of flies which ate the paint as he worked. He died at sea on the way to Cape Town of dysentery contracted at Princes' Island off the western end of Java. Banks paid his outstanding salary to his brother.<ref>Template:Cite Australian Dictionary of Biography</ref>
Before his travels, Parkinson had taught illustration to Ann Lee, daughter of James Lee a Hammersmith nurseryman for whom he had made illustrations.<ref name="christies">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In his will Parkinson left "whatever utensils that are useful in painting or drawing to Mr. Lee’s daughter, my scholar."<ref name="bygod">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="parkinson">Template:Cite book</ref>
Journal
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Parkinson kept a journal on board the ship until shortly before his death in January 1771.Template:Sfn While the fair copy of the journal was lost and never found, Stanfield Parkinson obtained some of his brother's papers from Banks in 1773, and decided to publish them earlier than John Hawkesworth's official publication of Cook's and Banks's journals.Template:Sfn A legal injunction obtained by Hawkesworth prevented the publication until two days after his book had appeared on 10 June 1773.Template:Sfn
Legacy
Parkinson is commemorated in the common and scientific name of the Parkinson's petrel Procellaria parkinsoni. The great Florilegium of his work was finally published in 1988 by Alecto Historical Editions in 35 volumes and has since been digitized by the Natural History Museum in London.<ref name="zanan"/>
In 1986, he was honoured on a postage stamp depicting his portrait issued by Australia Post.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The following are some examples of Parkinson's artistic work: {{#invoke:Gallery|gallery}}
See also
- Visual arts of Australia
- List of Australian botanical illustrators
- European and American voyages of scientific exploration
References
Sources
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Further reading
- de Bray, Lys (2001). The Art of Botanical Illustration: A history of classic illustrators and their achievements, pp. 72, 77. Quantum Publishing Ltd., London. Template:ISBN.
- Template:Cite book