Arthur James Weatherall Burgess

1879 - 1957

Burgess was born in Australia, the son of the district surveyor for New South Wales. He was educated in Hobart, Tasmania and Armidale, New South Wales before entering a three-year apprenticeship with P F Spencer, a Sydney architect. At this time he also took evening drawing classes with Frank Mahoney and then with the landscape and seascape painter William Lister Lister. At this time Burgess decided to abandon is architectural studies and travelled to England aiming to devote himself to painting. In England he attended the St Ives Art Club as a student of Julius Olsson and later Algernon Talmage. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1904 and settled in London working principally as a marine painter although also providing illustrations for The Illustrated London News, The Sphere and The Graphic. In 1917 he became an official Australian War Artist, witnessing the surrender of the German Fleet in the Firth of Forth in 1918. He exhibited widely and was vice-president of the Royal Society of Marine Artist and a member of the Wapping Group, Chelsea Arts Club and Langham Sketch Club.