Ship shape: Maritime Museum of Victoria chairman Henry Hudson with one of the paintings on exhibition.
THE SHIPS That Shaped Australia, an exhibition of 27 paintings of vessels that sailed into the history books, has been launched at Cape Otway Lightstation by Maritime Museum of Victoria chairman Henry Hudson.
Each of the large scale works were painted in the 1970s and 1980s by Jack L Koskie, a former lecturer at Deakin University, for his book the Ships That Shaped Australia.
Koskie’s works capture the high drama of early shipping in Australia including American whale boats, the first ship to traverse Bass Strait from west to east in 1801 the HMS Lady Nelson, and the Loch Ard which was wrecked in 1878 trying to sight the Cape Otway light.
The most contemporary vessel in the exhibition is Australia II the famous wing-keeled racing yacht which won the Americas Cup in 1983.
There’s also a rare survivor, the colonial ketch May Queen, a trading vessel built in 1867, which can still be seen moored at Constitution Dock in Hobart.
Mr Hudson said the collection gifted to the maritime museum by the Koskie family represented the artist’s lifelong fixation with all things maritime and dedication to research.
“He showed meticulous care and attention to detail, he thought it was essential that his paintings reflected the correctness of the ships and the sea. And the set of the sails had to be correct,” Mr Hudson said.
Lightstation manager Paul Thompson said Cape Otway had real links with some of the vessels portrayed in the exhibition such as the SS Casino, a steamship which traded between Melbourne and Port Fairy, and the Marco Polo, sailed by the infamous captain James ‘Bully’ Forbes.
“We’re thrilled to have the exhibition, which has only been exhibited twice before, at the lightstation,” Mr Thompson said.
“It gives locals and tourists further insight into our amazing maritime history, which the lightstation is very keen to promote and preserve.
“We’re an island nation surrounded by sea, many of our forebears arrived by ship and for at least the first 150 years of European settlement ships were our lifeline to the rest of the world – our maritime heritage is a huge part of our history.”
The paintings can be seen in the Lightkeeper’s Cafe at Cape Otway until February.
