ADAM FORSTERFROM PRUSSIAN ARMY OFFICER TO AUSTRALIAN WILD FLOWER PAINTER
Christobel Mattingley pays tribute to the little-known illustrator of Thistle Harris’ Wild Flowers of Australia In 1938 Thistle Harris’ Wild Flowers of Australia, newly published by Angus & Robertson, became one of the most significant books for nature lovers seeking to identify the flowers of our bush. It was subsequently reprinted many times and issued in seven further editions over four decades. Until colour photography overtook the art and discipline of wild flower painting, it was the standard and most accessible work of reference. But how many of its grateful users knew
that Adam Forster had painted the beautiful
illustrations almost 10 years before botanist
Thistle Harris wrote the text? Or indeed,
how many knew anything of the colourful Adam Forster was born Carl August von Wiarda circa 1850 into an aristocratic Prussian family, with estates in East Prussia. He grew up in Emden where his lawyer father was a judge and senator. Following tradition the young Carl was sent to Military School, studied medicine, became an officer in the elite Prussian Guard, and won the Iron Cross, First Class, during the Franco-Prussian War. But he was sickened by the slaughter and destruction he witnessed, and saddened by the pathetic plight of refugees, especially during the invasion of Paris. Soon afterwards he gave up his commission and emigrated to South Africa. He had a talent for figures and went into business in the Cape Province. Here he was attracted to a different sort of figure and married the daughter of the first mayor of Port Elizabeth, beautiful 19-year-old Mary Emma Smith, who had a 19-inch waist. After the disruption of the First Boer War he realised he could make a better and more stable life for his family in Australia.
Leaving Mary and their three children behind until he could establish himself, he sailed on the Cutty Sark, and en route decided to change his German name to Adam Forster, to create a more acceptable identity in the British colony. On arriving in Sydney at first he did it tough, sleeping under newspapers in the Domain until he again found opportunities. In 1897 he was appointed Registrar of the Pharmaceutical Board, an office he held for 23 years until his retirement. Also a staunch member of the Pharmaceutical Association, he took an active part in introducing new safety measures for poisons and medicines, including ridged bottles which warnedanyone groping for them in the dark that the contents were potentially dangerous. Fluent in seven languages, he was a foundation member of the Sydney German Club, but only English was spoken in the home and he became a naturalised Australian. However he maintained the tradition of decorating the Christmas tree for the children with gingerbread men obtained specially from Germany. Adam Forster was a distinguished-looking man with a fine flowing moustache, and his gentle, courteous nature, youthful enthusiasm, happy disposition and intelligence made him many friends. They included Billy Hughes, later Prime Minister; Ernest Wunderlich, manufacturer of tiles and stamped metal ceilings; and most importantly the naturalist and pioneer conservationist David George Stead, father of the novelist Christina Stead. David Stead, co-founder of the Wild Life Preservation Society in 1909, was keen to educate young Australians and encourage their love of nature. He saw the need for a handbook of Australian wild flowers and suggested to George Robertson of Angus and Robertson that Adam Forster would be the ideal illustrator. Forster had inherited artistic talent from his father, an accomplished portrait painter. But it was his interest in the flora of his adopted country, so different from that of Europe and South Africa, which led him to develop that talent. He set himself the goal of depicting one thousand Australian wild flowers in all their diversity and beauty, and worked assiduously in his free time to achieve his aim. Travelling by tram and train at weekends, accompanied by his wife or one of his daughters, he ranged in search of specimens from Ashfield to the Botanic Gardens, Dee Why and other areas of Sydney where the bushland has long since been cleared, and further afield to Goulburn and the Shoalhaven. The more delicate flowers he painted on site. Others he took home with him.
He was a member of the New South Wales Naturalists’ Society and as he occasionally exhibited his work in Sydney, word of his skill and botanical accuracy spread. Soon naturalists from as far away as Western Australia were sending him specimens, each stem carefully embedded in a half potato and packed in damp cotton wool. Forster accepted George Robertson’s commission to illustrate a text written by Edwin Cheel, State Botanist of New South Wales, and delivered miniature paintings copied from his larger works to Angus and Robertson in batches. Soon after completing 248 images for the book in 1928, he suffered a massive heart attack and died. About the same time George Robertson also died and the project was shelved. Almost 10 years later George Ferguson, Robertson’s grandson, discovered the blocks and manuscript in the company strongroom. He also was passionate about publishing Australian material, and consulted Stead. Stead by then was in a long-term relationship with teacher and environmental advocate Thistle Harris and deeply admired her knowledge and expertise as a botanist. He recommended that Angus and Robertson should seek her opinion of the material. Harris considered that the text was too academic for the general reader, who needed less technical information. She agreed to write more reader-friendly notes, but later decided that students required something additional, and compiled a comprehensive botanical key. All for the miserly sum of £15. According to her biographer, Joan Webb, Harris had misheard the verbal offer and thought she had accepted £50! The fee paid to Forster is not known. It is to be hoped it was more than the paltry amount Neville Cayley received for his great labour of love in painting and recording Australian birds.
But more problems awaited. Like Ellis Rowan and other flower painters, Forster had depicted some specimens against a coloured background to show them better. While the publisher wanted a botanical arrangement, and Harris had prepared one, this was not feasible for printing purposes. So the illustrations and accompanying text had to be reorganised to group them according to backgrounds, which resulted in aesthetically pleasing pages, but not the desired botanical order. Even through later editions when printing techniques allowed the backgrounds to be blocked out, the original arrangement stood. Forster had completed 918 paintings at the time of his death. Most were drawn mainly from plants growing on the east coast, including some of Australia’s best known and loved flowers, such as golden wattle, the national emblem, and the handsome waratah, the New South Wales state emblem. But other state emblems such as the striking kangaroo paw and brilliant Sturt desert pea, were also among his subjects, as well as many lesser known and shy species only noticed by keen observers. His images are exquisite, meticulously accurate and elegantly composed. According to his granddaughter, Danise Johnson, botanists sometimes came to watch him work and admire his lifelike watercolours. Once when he had left the room, he returned to find one of them trying to lift the flower from the paper with his fingernail, suspecting that it had been pressed on. Adam Forster did not live to see his work in print. But in Wild Flowers of Australia Thistle Harris paid a warm and well-deserved tribute to his passion. ‘In his enthusiasm he took infinite pains to make his collection as wide as possible, and to this end made many a long and arduous bush trek. I remember him, in his later years, as virile and active as a schoolboy, scrambling over rocky precipices, pushing his way through dense scrub, walking miles without apparent fatigue. And his great joy when some new or long-sought plant was finally discovered. With infinite care the treasure would be stowed for transport; or, if it were too fragile, down he would sit, with little regard to his personal comfort, and make the painting on the spot, filled with the joy of bringing the plant to blossom again on his paper.’
There was considerable interest in acquiring Forster’s magnum opus, and the German Government offered him a large sum for the collection. But it was Forster’s express wish that it should not leave Australia. In 1949 his family respected his desire to give his paintings to the Australian people and they found a home in the National Library, Canberra, which now holds the copyright. Today they are part of the Library’s rich Pictures Collection and have featured in a major exhibition of botanical exploration and illustration in Australia, alongside the works of Ferdinand Bauer and Sydney Parkinson. They have also been reproduced on wrapping paper and cards for everyone to enjoy. Christobel Mattingley’s treasured copy of Wild Flowers of Australia, a 1939 re-issue of the first edition, still in its original, albeit slightly torn, dust jacket, was given to her by her father at Christmas 1941, inscribed as ‘a reward for an excellent year’s work’. It was a wise investment of 7/6 on his part , which saw much use as she was growing up at the edge of Sydney’s North Shore bush, and later elsewhere in Australia. DR CHRISTOBEL MATTINGLEY AM, awardwinning author of 44 books, had her first writing published at the age of 10 in 1941 in the nature magazine Wild Life. King of the Wilderness, one of her latest books, is the acclaimed biography of legendary Tasmanian bushman and naturalist Deny King. Mattingley was recently honoured with an inaugural Lifetime Recognition Award for her writing. Her papers are collected by the National Library. |
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