Artist's Bio

John Gibb, 1831 - 1909, was a Scottish, marine painter who settled in New Zealand in 1876.

Regarded as New Zealand's major professional marine painter in the 1880s, he sketched from nature and later worked from these drawings to create paintings with an intense attention to detail.

When the Canterbury Society of Arts was formed in 1880, Gibb was a foundation member and exhibited hundreds of works with the Society until his death in 1909. He also showed in Auckland and Wellington from the early 1880s and sent works to all the international and inter-colonial exhibitions beyond New Zealand.