Bio
Bio Victor Ernest Cobb (1876-1945)
Victor was born on 14 August 1876 at Footscray Melbourne In 1891-93 Cobb attended Melbourne Church of England Grammar School where he learned basic drawing A student of the National Gallery School under Lindsay Bernard Hall worked in oils and watercolours and met Lionel Lindsay John Shirlow and Ernest Moffitt all with an interest in etching kindled by a recent exhibition of offprint’s by overseas masters Enthusiastic, but lacking technical facilities and any relevant Australian tradition, Cobb and his friends were soon experimenting with hand-made tools and ingeniously contrived etching presses Cobb produced his first print in the mid-1890s.
Cobb carried out various commissions such as designing the ball cards and menus for the 1920 visit of the Prince of Wales to Adelaide and a series of etchings of Coombe Cottage for Dame Nellie Melba In November 1925 he began work under (Sir) Colin Mackenzie as science artist to the National Museum of Australian Zoology In the next five years until the museum moved to Canberra to become the Institute of Anatomy Cobb made hundreds of detailed anatomical drawings of Australian marsupials and reptiles and skulls and skeletons of Aboriginals and notorious criminals such as Frederick Deeming and Ned Kelly—they are now in bound volumes at the institute Subsequently he exhibited regularly taught etching and lectured in country centres to art societies schools and universities
Cobb’s reputation rests on a large oeuvre of etchings built up during his lifetime and depicting with meticulous accuracy the architectural splendour of Melbourne’s colleges and churches vistas of the city the tea-tree patterned foreshore and the outer areas of bush and Countryside State galleries hold many examples of his work.
He was a member of the Bread and Cheese Club, Twenty Melbourne Painters and the Victorian Artists’ Society A fine craftsman and master printer he was generous to fellow artists with his technical knowledge and skill
