Frank P. Mahony

Francis P. Mahony, also known as Frank Mahony, (4 December 1862 – 28 June 1916) was an Australian artist and member of the Dawn and Dusk Club.

Although christened "Francis Mahony", he later added 'Prout' and usually signed his work 'Frank P. Mahony'.^[1]

Mahony was born in Melbourne, third surviving child of Timothy Mahony, an Irish-born contractor, and his Cornish second wife Elizabeth, née Johns. Mahony was taken to Sydney when 10 years old and studied at the Academy of Art under Giulio Anivitti.^[1] Mahony's work was accepted by The Bulletin and he became known for his excellent drawings of horses. In 1889 his oil painting Rounding up a Straggler, was bought for the Art Gallery of New South Wales; in 1896 The Cry of the Mothers was also purchased.^[1] Mahony did a lot of illustrative work for the Picturesque Atlas of Australia, Victoria and its Metropolis, the Antipodean and other magazines of the period, and was also responsible for some of the illustrations to Barcroft Boake's Where the Dead Men Lie.

Mahony illustrated Australian writer Henry Lawson's While the Billy Boils (1896) and In the Days When the World was Wide and Other Verses (1900). He also did the illustrations for Dot and the Kangaroo, written by Ethel Pedley.^[2]

Mahony left for England in 1901,^[1] but his health became impaired and he had little success in England as an artist. Mahony died of cancer in Kensington Infirmary, London on 28 June 1916.^[1] Mahony was a capable painter of animals and is represented in the Sydney, Hobart and Wanganui, New Zealand galleries.^[3]

References

1. B. G. Andrews (1986). "Mahony, Francis (Frank) (1862 - 1916)". Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 10. MUP. p. 381. Retrieved 2009-10-02.
2. Dot and the kangaroo - About This Book at www.childrenslibrary.org
3. Serle, Percival (1949). "Mahony, Francis". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.

Additional sources listed by the Dictionary of Australian Biography:

W. Moore, The Story of Australian Art; P. S. Cleary, Australia's Debt to Irish Nation Builders; The Bulletin, 24 and 31 August 1916.

Additional sources listed by the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

G. A. Taylor, Those Were the Days (Syd, 1918); R. Holden introd, Frank P. Mahony (1862-1916) Colonial Artist, exhibition catalogue, Josef Lebovic Gallery (Syd, 1983); Bookfellow, 25 Mar 1899; Illustrated Sydney News, 28 Nov 1889; The Bulletin, 26 June, 14 Aug 1924; pictures catalogue under Mahony (State Library of New South Wales).

External links

• Works by Frank P. Mahony at Project Gutenberg