1820 - 1875
| Names: | Baines, John Thomas |
| Date of Birth: | 27 November 1820 |
| Date of Death: | 8 May 1875 |
| Place of Birth: | King’s Lynn, Norfolk, England |
| Place of Death: | Durban, South Africa |
| Gender: | Male |
| In Summary : | Marine & Portrait Painter |
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Early Life:
SA
Painter John Thomas Baines was born on 27 November 1820 in King’s
Lynn, Norfolk, England (often reffered to as Thomas Baines). His father was a master mariner and Baines was
educated at Horatio Nelson’s Classical and Commercial Academy.
In 1836 he began an apprenticeship with a coachbuilder. However, he soon
rejected this profession in favour of painting, a craft he had learnt
from the painter William Carr.
Career:
Baines left England for South
Africa and arrived in Cape Town on 23 November 1842. He worked first
as a painter for a cabinet-maker in Cape
Town, and later as a marine and portrait painter. Baines based himself
in the Eastern Cape between 1848 and 1853 and from there he undertook
three journeys to the interior. His first journey was beyond the Orange
River (1848), beyond the Kei
River and over the Winterberg (1849) and
an attempt to reach the Okavango Swamps (1850). He became South Africa’s
first official war artist and recorded the Eighth
Frontier War (1850-1853).
In 1852 Baines returned to England and published Scenery and Events in South Africa. In March 1855 he left England for Australia as official artist to A.C. Gregory’s north Australian expedition. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and received its gold medal in 1858.
| Outside Links | |
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Wikipedia biography: John Thomas Bains: |
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| Sources for this biography | |
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Potgieter, D.J.(ed)(1970) |
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Later he was artist to David Livingstone's 1858 expedition to the Zambezi. Baines quarreled with Livingstone on this trip and he was unfairly dismissed for theft. He traveled to South West Africa (now Namibia) in 1862, and on 23 July of that year he reached Victoria Falls. It was on this expedition that Baines painted many of his famous scenes which were reproduced in the album of prints, The Victoria Falls, Zambezi River was published by Day in London 1865.He went to Victoria Falls primarily to meet Livingstone and clear his name, but he arrived too late - Livingstone had already left the area.
Later Life:
A bout of fever forced him
to return to Cape Town, and in 1864 he returned to England. He returned
to South Africa in 1868 and led an adventurous
expedition to the Matabele King Mzilikazi, on behalf of the South African
Goldfields Exploration Company. Mzilikazi, however, died before Baines
reached him. Baines’s Journal of residence in Africa spanning the
period 1842-1853 was published in two volumes, in 1961 and 1964 respectively,
for the Jan Van Riebeeck society. In 1873 he visited the Injembe district
of Natal to investigate gold deposits and attended King Cetshwayo’s
coronation. He was busy writing an account of his expeditions when he
fell ill and died in Durban on 8 May 1875.