MINNS, BENJAMIN EDWIN (1863-1937)   

Watercolourist and black-and-white artist, was born on 17 November 1863 near Dungog, New South Wales. He spent his early years at Inverell, where he had lessons in painting and drawing. At 17 he intended for a career in law.
but then got his first job as an Illustrated for the Sydney News. Minns also drew for the Sydney Mail and in 1887-1937 regularly contributed to the Bulletin, becoming particularly well known for his humorous drawings of Aborigines.

The National Art Gallery of New South Wales purchased his 'Season of Mists' from the annual Art Society exhibition in 1891 and in 1894 acquired some of his first paintings of Aborigines, including portrait heads that combine a somewhat sentimental charm with a genuine respect.

In 1895 Minns and his wife went to England. He sent back drawings to the Bulletin and contributed to St Paul's Magazine, Punch, the Strand Magazine, the Bystander and other journals. He steadily developed his watercolour painting, sketching in England and France, and exhibited successfully at the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in London, and the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (New Salon) in Paris. He was also commissioned by Colonel Frank Rhodes to paint a series of watercolours of the family seat at Dalham, Suffolk.

Minns returned to Australia in 1915; unfortunately the paintings he had with him were destroyed by a shipboard fire. It was not until the early 1920s that exhibitions of Minns's watercolours in Sydney and Melbourne won him recognition as one of Australia's foremost watercolourists. His usual signature was B. E. Minns. He was a founder in 1924 and first president (until 1937) of the Australian Water-Colour Institute. He was also a member of the Society of Artists, Sydney, and with Lambert and Longstaff was among the artists commissioned by the Art Gallery in 1928 to paint a self-portrait.

His watercolours, somewhat neglected after his death, are noted for a lucid and sympathetic handling of wash and show some influence of the fine decorative sense of Conder and of the blue and gold vision of the early Streeton. Most highly regarded are his lyrical views of Sydney, its harbour, streets and beaches, and his paintings of the Aborigines and their way of life, based on memories of his early years in the Hunter valley.
An award-winning artist, Benjamin Minns is represented in State Galleries in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.*

HIGHEST PRICE ever paid for Minns (All Media types) $86,250