When John Lewin stepped off the boat in Sydney, Australia on January 11, 1800, he was about to wield his paintbrush as the first free-settler professional artist in a wild frontier land. He's already missed his first boat to Australia, the Buffalo, which his wife Anna Maria (also and artist) had boarded 18 months earlier.
So, he took the long journey to Australia alone, and he began his life in a new land amid controversy, when Anna Maria was accused in court of misconduct with the Buffalo's second mate - a charge which she was acquitted of.
Nonetheless, once he was settled, Lewin painted some of the earliest and most valuable paintings of Australia's fauna and flora, exhibiting a relaxed style at odds with the traditional European art, but well suited to the colonies.
John Lewin died in Sydney in 1819 as is buried at Botany Bay.
The Tasmanian Tiger, now extinct.
