Ballarat’s Historical Gum~Tree

James McKain Meek
James Curtis, Caxton Printing Works, Ballarat (printer)
Ballarat’s Historical Gum~Tree
(proof copy), 1895
photolithograph
61.7 x 48.7cm
Art Gallery of Ballarat
Gift of Austin McCallum, 1979

Described by historian James Flett as “a very strange picture … called an Historical Tree”, this work is quintessentially Meek. It teems with historical and statistical data and features an eccentric text about incidents on the Ballarat diggings. Meek’s version of early events is not always shared by historians and some of his claims are contested.