Rabbit Plague Raking up Rabbits Broken Hill 1893 / Sam Byrne

ML 1569

fonds

approximately 1965

Graphic Materials, Paintings

9660944

1 painting - visible image 60 x 50 cm, in frame 64 x 74 cm - oil and enamel on masonite board

Sam Byrne (1883-1978), artist, was born in Gawler, South Australia. He moved to Broken Hill as a child in 1890, where he was educated until the age of 15. He worked for 51 years as a miner at the Broken Hill mines until his retirement in 1949. He started to paint in retirement, and without any formal training was essentially a self-taught artist.

'Rabbit plague 1893' is one of several depictions Byrne painted in which he drew on childhood memories of events that occurred in Broken Hill. Byrne witnessed the historic invasion of rabbits into the Australian outback in the early 1890s; he recalled how rabbits gathered around the miners’ huts, devouring scraps of food, and how the rabbits died of starvation during droughts.

References:
Grishin, Sasha. "Byrne, Samuel Michael (1883–1978)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Accessed 6 December 2021. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/byrne-samuel-michael-9654
Moore, Ross. Sam Byrne: folk painter of the Silver City. Ringwood, Victora: Viking Penguin Books, 1985.

Previously held in a private collection in Victoria

The painting depicts men grimacing as they collect hundreds of rabbit carcasses and fill a wheelbarrow and horse-drawn carts for disposal.

In copyright:
Copyright holder:: The Estate of Sam Byrne
Please acknowledge:: Please acknowledge: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy copyright holder

Frame possibly late 1990s-2000s; frame makers label on verso 'Jarman the picture framer from Hawthorn in Victoria'

Inscribed lower left: 'Rabbit Plague Raking up Rabbits Broken Hill 1893'.
Signed lower right: 'Sam Byrne'