Thomas Baines

Thomas Baines (1820-1875) is a famous traveller and painter in Southern Africa and Australia.

Biography

Baines accompanied Livingstone in 1858 and was the first to paint the Victoria Falls. The first official war artist in South Africa (Eastern Frontier war 1850-53), whose journals, sketches and paintings form a valuable record of the times.

Contribution to South African theatre and performance

Baines's painting of the Southern African scene have been among the more valauble records of the natural and social life in the country in the 19th cedntury, and therefore important also for historians and cultural researchers. For example, his well-known painting of a Xhosa "ntsomi" telling a story is one of few visual records of earlier indigenous performance forms.

He was also a prolific and admired scene painter, working for Sefton Parry and other theatre groups in Cape Town, not only painting scenery and backdrops, but on occasion providing "mechanical arrangements" for shows. He is credited for example with spectacular settings and mechanical help for productions of the nautical dramas such as The Lost Ship, The Sea of Ice and The Dream at Sea in 1860, The Lonely Man of the Ocean in 1861, .

He painted a backdrop illustrating "Discovery of the SA Goldfields" for the revamped Oddfellows Hall when Disney Roebuck changed it to the Bijou Theatre in 1875.