Ship portraits

The Museum holds an extensive collection of ship portraits in oil, watercolour, pen and ink, and pencil. Most are by South Australian marine artists and capture the ships and ketches that worked in local waters. The collection includes over forty nineteenth century ship portraits, many by notable local marine artists such as George Bourne, Frederick Dawson, and George Frederick Gregory. Twentieth century artists represented in the collection include Harold Dalton Hall and Port Adelaide based artist, Charles Henry Moore. Most of these works were transferred to the Museum from the Port Adelaide Nautical Museum, an institution with origins that stem back to 1872.