15 Facts About Conrad Martens

Conrad Martens was an English-born landscape painter active on HMS Beagle from 1833 to 1834.

Conrad Martens arrived in Australia in 1835 and painted there until his death in 1878.

Conrad Martens was born in 1801 at Crutched Friars near Tower Hill.

Conrad Martens left Beagle at Valparaiso in the second half of 1834 and took passage to Tahiti and many of the South Sea islands, including New Zealand, before arriving in Sydney 1835.

Conrad Martens arrived in the colony with a valuable collection of sketches, which he at first intended to take back to his friend Blackwood in India, but finding his pictures were appreciated in Sydney, he found constant employment and decided to remain.

Conrad Martens went on to become one of the most proficient, prominent and prolific landscape artist in the colony.

Conrad Martens married Jane Carter, of Welsh heritage and the only child of William and Jane Carter at St James Church, Sydney, on 9 March 1837.

Jane's father, a private barrister and First Master in Chancery of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, had purchased Conrad Martens' painting View of Tahiti in September 1836.

In late 1851 Conrad Martens sailed to Brisbane, then travelling back by road across the Great Dividing Range to the Darling Downs, then south through New England to Sydney.

The plan succeeded, and Conrad Martens was eventually commissioned to paint over seventy watercolours, nearly forty of which are still known today.

Conrad Martens exhibited at the Victorian Fine Arts Society in Melbourne in 1853 and at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1855.

Conrad Martens sent Darwin a watercolour of Brisbane River and exhibited at the International Exhibition in London.

Conrad Martens received his first public commission in 1872, from the Victorian Gallery for a watercolour of Apsley Falls on Waterloo Station, near Walcha, New South Wales, and a second similar commission in 1875 from the New South Wales Academy of Arts, of whose Council he became a member in 1877.

Conrad Martens was buried at a private ceremony at St Thomas Rest Park, North Sydney, and was carried to his grave by Sir John Hay, Dr Ward, Mr Slade, Mr Marshall Bailey, and Captain Mann.

Conrad Martens was married to Jane Brackenbury Conrad Martens, nee Carter.