Watercolour

Largely self-taught, the landscape painter John Gully was born in Bath, England, in 1819. After reading Charles Flinders Hursthouse’s 1849 ‘Account of the Settlement of New Plymouth’, Gully emigrated the day before Christmas Eve 1851 to New Zealand with his wife and children. After an unsuccessful foray into farming, Gully sought employment at the Department of Lands and Survey as a draughtsman and went on to create a large number of views of New Zealand which he travelled extensively. In 1871 he had a painting included the British Royal Academy’s summer exhibition entitled 'Mount Cook and the Southern Alps, West Coast of New Zealand'.