There are a considerable number of books on the art of the convicts, so Convicts & Art has been covered reasonably well but art is only once facet of the arts that has been examined to any extent. This book concerns itself with Convicts & the Arts.

This book, then, endeavors to look at the convicts’ contribution to the arts, and demonstrates without doubt that the convicts made a significantly broader contribution to the culture of Australia than previously thought.

There is a common misconception that all convicts were immediately institutionalised in a cell, and convict culture was solely a prison culture. It needs reinforcing that when the First Fleet arrived there were no prisons in Australia, no cells where they could put the convicts. The early governors and principal authorities quite logically endeavoured to use whatever skills the convicts had. So artists, generally forgers, were placed with those who were interested in recording a visual history of this new land.

Among the convicts were bricklayers, house painters, jewelers, silversmiths, goldsmiths and so on, and some of them made significant contributions to the emerging society. Some of these contributions will be developed herein.

This work endeavors to examine the convicts’ contribution to the arts in Australia, in areas like the writing of novels, poetry, autobiographies, sculpture, theatre, music, architecture, jewelry, the press, decorative arts and pottery.