Audio-visual source
Beyond the Great Divide Podcast, Episode “The Gumleaf Artist,”
hosted by Adam Walters, March 2026.
Listen on Spotify
Alfred William Eustace (1820–1907) was a pioneer artist, poet, naturalist, and gumleaf painter whose life spanned the transformation of colonial Victoria from early settlement to Federation.
Born in Berkshire, England, he emigrated to Australia in 1851 and worked as a shepherd in the Chiltern district of north-east Victoria, where he developed his distinctive practice of painting landscapes on eucalyptus leaves.
Alongside his visual art, Eustace wrote poetry, played music, and documented the natural world around him (bird taxidermy), leaving behind a rare and personal record of nineteenth-century Australian life.
Working with limited materials, Eustace developed an inventive approach to painting, creating detailed landscape scenes on eucalyptus leaves as well as on board and tin. Alongside his visual art, he wrote poetry, played gumleaf music, and preserved native bird specimens, documenting everyday life in a rapidly changing colonial environment.
Short films and archival media help place Alfred William Eustace within the landscapes that shaped his life and art.
The Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA), conservator, Emily Mulvihill and Biodiversity Officer, Phill Falke (North East Catchment Managment Authority), take us on a tour to find leaves among the red and white box trees of the Chiltern-Mt.Pilot National Park. This gives a special insight into preserving examples of Eustace’s gumleaf paintings and their unusual place in Australian colonial art.
Drone footage by 'Mavic Pro' over Ashdown House and the Berkshire countryside evokes the environment in which Alfred Eustace spent his early years working for his father John - Head Gamekeeper to the Earl of Craven, before emigrating to Australia in 1851.
Alfred William Eustace, Hans Heysen & Peter Wohlleben 'Talking Trees' by Hadyn Wilson. Alfred William Eustace, Artist (1820 – 1907). Hans Heysen (8 October 1877 – 2 July 1968). Peter Wohlleben (1964-). Short film for NSW State Library Artist-in-Residence, Hadyn Wilson's exhibition. March 2021.
This visual presentation combines historical photographs, landscapes, gumleaf artworks, and archival material connected to Alfred William Eustace and the colonial north-east Victorian environment in which he lived and worked. See Booranga Writers' Centre FaceBook page.