Rotomahana

John Philemon Backhouse was born in England and emigrated to Auckland, New Zealand in 1865. There is no evidence Backhouse received artistic training,
but he was evidently a keen amateur painter. In the 1870s he set up a sign-writing business and he produced illuminations for Auckland’s Jubilee celebrations
of Queen Victoria. By the end of the 19th century, he appears to have made his living selling art and was listed as an Auckland artist from 1894-1901 in Wises.
The Turnbull holds several naïve oil paintings by Backhouse made in and around the central North Island from the 1880s, picturing Māori cultural scenes,
as well as tourist sites, including the Pink and White terraces at Rotomahana. They also hold sketchbooks demonstrating more sensitive depictions in pencil
and watercolour of landscapes and studies of insects and birds.

Backhouse seems to have found his niche producing small, souvenir-like works, including watercolours of native flora and postcards, but he is best known
for his paintings of New Zealand views on shells, capitalising on the late 19th century mythology of New Zealand as ‘Maoriland’. Backhouse did not exhibit
regularly but advertised his products in newspapers, for example, in 1894 he advertised ‘oil sketches…water colour drawings of native Flowers [and] painted
Native Shells’ (<em>Bay of Plenty Times</em>, 20 June 1894, p. 4), and in 1897, he advertised in the <em>Hot Lakes Chronicles</em> ‘To Tourists…before you leave Rotorua,
inspect the miniature oil paintings of the Hot Lakes scenery, for sale at the Hot Lakes Chronicle Office…’ (20 February 1897, p. 3). As well as having
works in stock, he carried out painting tours during which he was willing to paint pictures on commission (<em>Hot Lakes Chronicle</em>, 24 December 1896, p. 2).
 
Backhouse’s painted shells transfer the sketches he made in the 1880s onto large oyster shells, producing works that sit somewhere between art, craft and
decorative arts, one might even call them 'kitsch'. He focussed on popular views that would appeal to a souvenir, tourist market, such as Māori whare,
river scenes, and views in the Rotomahana hot lakes district. Like many other artists with a commercial bent (such as Charles Blomfield), he continued
to paint views of the Pink and White Terraces long after their destruction by the eruption of Mt Tarawera in June 1886. Works like Backhouse’s painted
shells were included in colonial exhibitions, but there is no evidence Backhouse participated in these events, instead, he seemed to have pursued a
commercial market for his work.