Name

Christopher Coveny

Other names

COVENY, Christopher J.

Culture

Australian

Gender

Male

Birth date

3 August 1846

Birth place

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia View on map Close map

Death date

14 May 1941

Death Place

Stillorgan (near Dublin), Ireland View on map Close map

Movements

England 1884-1915

Occupations

Artist (painter) | Illustrator | Painter | Printmaker

Summary

Worked: Australia (NSW). Etchings

NGA IRN

13693

Context

Australia

Biography

Christopher Coveney

Born in Sydney on 3 August 1846, Christopher John Coveny was sent to England in 1858 to be educated at Oscof, a Catholic college near Birmingham. Although he showed artistic aptitude he studied law to please his father. He became a barrister and returned to Sydney and became an associate of W.B. Dalley.

He soon gave up the legal profession, being quite unsuited in temperament, and began teaching in Catholic colleges in New South Wales. He was self-taught in etching and made all his own tools. His etchings were printed by C.M. Buck in Sydney. In 1883 he published twenty scenes from the works of Dickens. The etchings, in style, technique and subject, owe much to the English artist Boz, so much so that some considered them mere copies and Coveny did two extra plates to clear his name.

In 1883 Coveny travelled to England to see if he could establish himself as a black and white artist. The following year he had a serious nervous breakdown and for the next fifteen years was completely incapacitated. After his recover in 1909 he seemed to have lost all artistic taste. In 1919, aged 73, he suddenly took up his work again and wrote poems which he illustrated in watercolour. He died 14 May 1941.

© Australianprints, 1996

Last Updated

15 Nov 2022