Artist's Biography
Tom Garret was born in 1879 in Hobart.
He moved to Melbourne in 1900 and read for Holy Orders, which he abandoned.
Later, Garrett settled in Sydney and worked in art department of Swaine’s Stationery Shop.
In 1929, when he was 50, Garret held his first exhibition of watercolours in Sydney. After the great success of this first show, regular exhibitions followed in Adelaide, Sydney & Melbourne until his death in 1952.
While also a painter of oils and watercolours, Garrett was most renowned for his mastery of the now rarely seen, and largely lost art form of the Monotype.
A monotype is created by painting onto a plate of glass or silver. This image is then transferred to a sheet of moistened paper, giving a pleasant textured colouring.
Monotypes are unique as there is no possible means of creating more than one. They are distinguished by the margin and a pencilled title & signature.