Australia: Lost Port Adelaide captured on canvas

Vibrant oil and watercolour paintings depicting Port Adelaide as a booming commercial and recreational hub will be exhibited for the first time at the South Australian Maritime Museum. Opening on February 6, 2009, Captured on Canvas: John Giles' Port Adelaide 1930-1960 will showcase paintings by the highly talented, but largely unrecognised South Australian artist, John Giles.

The paintings are on loan from the artist's family who were keen to show Port Adelaide's vitality during this period. John Giles loved the port. While working as a local tailor, he spent every spare moment capturing the colour and movement of the bustling working harbour.

Lugging his easel, stool and paint box, he executed his paintings on the spot – recording snapshots of the port at work and play. The paintings depict the port's boat building yards, its sugar and flour mills, the picturesque wooden ketches that hauled grain from the Gulf to Adelaide, lumbering cargo ships, and the tiny recreational sail boats that flitted in between them.

They highlight the dramatic changes in the working port over the 20th century. Many of the structures depicted have been demolished and traditional port industries such as boat building, milling and fishing have been displaced. In the exhibition, several of Giles' paintings will be juxtaposed by contemporary photographs of the same views by local photographer James Bateman, to highlight the lost maritime heritage.

"John Giles' work is extremely important as the photographic record of Port Adelaide is often incomplete — particularly during the war years when few photographs were taken," said Kevin Jones, the South Australian Maritime Museum's Director.

"His paintings are often a unique record of the port during certain periods. Many of the vessels depicted in his work are named and numbered. We are hoping the exhibition will attract locals who will share stories relating to some of these ships and sailboats, and their memories of working and living in the port."

Several of Giles' strongest work depicts the slips and boatyards that maintained the vast traffic of wooden ketches and steel ships that handled cargo in Port Adelaide. McFarlane's boatyards supported five generations of boat builders in Port Lincoln and Port Adelaide. Fletcher's slip was established in Port Adelaide's Inner Harbor in 1851 and serviced wooden clippers, steamships and fishing vessels for 150 years.

Captured on Canvas: John Giles' Port Adelaide 1930-1960 is a collaboration between the Giles family, the Port of Adelaide Branch of the National Trust, and the South Australian Maritime Museum. It is proudly sponsored by AGL Torrens Island Power Station.

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