Three Ketches
Oil painting on canvas of ketches Active, Bronzewing and Malcolm on the Port River, by John Giles.
Registered in 1873 and broken up in the Port in 1960, Active spent most of its trading life in the Gulf of St Vincent. Bronzewing was built in 1873 in Tasmania by the Hawkins Brothers and had several owners in Port Adelaide. The ketch traded to ports in the Spencer Gulf and the south-east of South Australia until 1914 when it was grounded off King Island, Bass Strait. Malcolm was built in 1875 at Port Adelaide and was a familiar sight in the Port Wakefield trade until the 1920s.
Artist John Giles loved the Port. A local tailor, he was renowned as an excellent cutter and fitter. While his business thrived, he spent every spare moment capturing the colour and movement of the working harbour. Giles painted on the spot, recording the Port at work and play through depression, war, and boom. His paintings are snapshots in time, evoking a port rowdy with industry and congested with steamers, ketches and sail boats. Where others saw smoke stacks and steam funnels, Giles glimpsed great beauty. Perched on the shoreline, Giles made detailed on-site studies and worked them up into finished paintings in his backyard studio. A member of the Port Adelaide institute, Giles donated this work as a token of thanks.
Artist: John Giles
Associated Locations: Port Adelaide, South Australia, Inner Harbor