John Dempsey’s Portraits

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Fifty Years Porter, Charing Cross, 1824

It is my delight to present John Dempsey’s street portraits from the eighteen-twenties held in the collection of the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery. Originally attributed to George Scharf, they were identified as the work of John Dempsey (1802-74) by curator David Hansen who discovered a folio of fifty-one portraits in 1996 in a drawer labelled ‘U’ for unknown.

Dempsey was an itinerant jobbing artist without any formal training who created ‘Likenesses of Public Characters’ in London and the provincial cities of England, as he travelled around in search of commissions for portrait miniatures and silhouettes. No record exists of any exhibitions and in 1845, he was declared bankrupt. Yet his achievement is unique and enduring.

In spite of Dempsey’s unconventional perspective and disproportionate figures, he created portraits full of humanity that evoke the presence of street people and the outcast poor with compassion and vitality. These are portraits of individuals and they are full of life. As an itinerant artist in an age that did not distinguish between street traders and beggars, he dignified his fellow travellers through his portraits. He understood their lives because he shared their precarious existence.

When I first saw these pictures, I was startled by how familiar they appeared to me and I assumed this was because I have spent so much time looking at prints of The Cries of London. But then I realised that I recognised the demeanour and expression of John Dempsey’s portraits because I see them, their crew and their kin, every day as I walk around the streets of London two centuries later.

Sharp, Orange Man, Colchester, 1823

Watercress, Salisbury

Black Charley, Bootmaker, Norwich, 1823

Muffin Man

Mary Croker,  Mat Woman, Colchester, 1823

Sam’l Hevens, Old Jew, 1824

Charles M’Gee, Crossing Sweeper, London, c 1824

Old Bishop, Pieman, Harwich

Woolwich, 1824

Match Woman, Woolwich, 1824

Mark Custings (commonly called Blind Peter) and his boy, Norwich, 1823

Copeman, Gardener, Yarmouth

A Bill Poster, 1825

The Doorkeeper, Royal Managerie, Exeter ‘Change, (London) 1824

Images reproduced courtesy of Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery

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