CHAPMAN, Ernest Arthur b.1847

Born probably in Wellington, eldest son of Judge H. S. Chapman: was brought up in Wellington and was said often to have painted with C. D. Barraud, a family connection, whose daughter Florence he married. In 1865, after the judge had moved to Dunedin, E. A. Chapman worked in a bank there (at £100 a year) but in 1866, after some time on his father's Otago station, he had a year in Australia, at one stage managing an outstation there. Then he returned to New Zealand and managed his father's station again at least until his father's death on 27 Dec. 1881. But his father had apparently lost confidence in him and although his wife and children were given some security he himself did not benefit from his father's fortune. From 1882 he was a partner at Grampion Hills, a station near page 63 Burke's Pass. Painted watercolours and exhibited with OAS 1876–87 but his artistic talents were not appreciated by the rest of a brilliant family and in 1888 he transferred his share of the freehold to his partner and took his family to Melbourne where he worked as a professional artist. He died in Melbourne. Exhibited Fine Arts Assn Wtn 1883, NZ Academy of Fine Arts 1890, NZ Industrial Ex Wtn 1885 (two Canterbury watercolours). Watercolours of southern scenes 1874–82 are in Turnbull and Hocken.