James Peele

Name
James Peele
Date of birth
1846
Place of birth
London/England
Date of death
1905
Place of death
New Zealand
Biography
Born in London in 1846, James Peele immigrated with his family to Geelong, Victoria as a six-year-old, arriving in December 1852. In his youth he took art lessons from Edmund Sasse, a Belgian born artist, before commencing work for an auctioneer in Melbourne aged 14. Peele left for New Zealand two years later, joining the Bank of New Zealand, his roles taking him to various branches around the South Island.

Peele is quoted as saying ‘Everybody who lives in New Zealand who has a soul to appreciate Nature’s grandeur and beauty must turn either into a poet or a painter’ (Lyttleton Times, 21 May 1892, 6). So inspired himself, he immersed himself in the scenery, sketching it over eight years before first exhibiting at the Westland exhibition in Hokitika. Encouraged by the sale of all his works, he subsequently exhibited with the Canterbury and Otago art societies through the 1880s. He also sent work to the Colonial and Indian exhibition, London in 1886 and the Melbourne Centennial exhibition in 1888.

Peele returned to Melbourne in 1889 to paint full-time. Contemporary reports emphasise his success at the Melbourne exhibition – where he won a silver medal and sold all his paintings – emboldened him to ‘devote himself to his art, since which time his success has been uninterrupted’. From this point, he established a practice of returning to New Zealand once a year for several months to sketch in Fiordland, the Queenstown Lakes district and South Westland. He would then develop these sketches for exhibition and sale throughout the year. Peele returned permanently to New Zealand to live with his daughter and son-in-law several years before his death in 1905.