Richard Short (military artist)

Richard Short
Nationality Great Britain
Occupation naval officer, artist
Known for Drew iconic images that remain sought after by collectors over 250 years later

Richard Short was a military artist, best known for sketches he made of Quebec City, shortly after its capture by British forces.[1][2][3] Short is also known for sketches he made of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and sketches of notable naval engagements. The appearance of many of the old French régime's principal buildings is known only from Short's sketches.[4]

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography describes Short as a military officer, noting that in the days before photography officers were encouraged to learn how to paint or draw images for military purposes.[1] But it also notes that he was merely a ship's purser, in Quebec. Short served aboard HMS Baltimore, HMS Peregrine, HMS Mermaid, HMS Gibraltar, HMS Leopard, HMS Prince of Orange, HMS Dublin and HMS Neptune, before accepting an appointment at the Royal Navy's Chatham Dockyard.

Short was directed to make drawings, to record the appearance of principal Quebec building, following its capture.[5] Parliament passed an act directing the publishing of the twelve drawings.[6]

On February 2, 2017, the Montreal Gazette published an article about one of Short's drawings of Quebec, as part of its coverage of Black History Month.[7] The image showed a number of distant figures, including a black boy, in fancy clothes, attending a pair of affluent civilians, inspecting damage to a church. The article quoted Aly Ndiaye, who said Short captured “...the first image of a black person in Quebec, maybe even in Canadian history.” Ndiaye was sure he was a slave.

Some sources describe Short as part of the British garrison, as a Major, or Naval Captain.[8]

References

  1. 1 2 "Richard Short". Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Retrieved 2018-10-11. Nothing is known of Richard Short’s naval career except the vessels in which he served: Baltimore (a sloop), Peregrine (a sloop built in 1749), Mermaid (a frigate, which he appears to have left before she sailed for Nova Scotia in 1754), Gibraltar (a frigate), and four ships of the line, Leopard (built in 1756), Prince of Orange, Dublin (which returned from the West Indies in 1763), and Neptune. After this service at sea he was appointed to the Chatham dockyard, England. Though the list of ships does not indicate extensive service for Short in North America, the Prince of Orange brought him there in the fleet accompanying Wolfe’s forces in 1759.
  2. ↑ "Richard Short". Marianopolis College. Retrieved 2018-10-11. While he was in garrison at Quebec in 1759-60 he executed a series of twelve engravings of Quebec which were published in London in 1761, and are now much sought after by collectors.
  3. ↑ R. Bruce Elder (2006). "Image and Identity: Reflections on Canadian Film and Culture". Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p. 20. ISBN 9781554586776. Retrieved 2018-10-11.
  4. ↑ J. Russell Harper (1977). "Painting in Canada: A History". University of Toronto Press. p. 47. ISBN 9780802063076. Retrieved 2018-10-11. Richard Short, purser of HMS Orange, made detailed drawings of Quebec buildings after the capitulation, and several historic and celebrated structures of the French regime are known only through Short's views.
  5. ↑ Richard Short (1761). "Twelve Views of the Principal Buildings in Quebec: From Drawings Taken on the Spot, at the Command of Vice-Admiral Saunders". Thomas Jefferys. Retrieved 2018-10-11. Published, according to Act of Parliament, by Richard Short, and sold by Thomas Jefferys, at Charing Cross, 1761
  6. ↑ Joseph Sabin, Wilberforce Eames, R.W.G. Vail (1891). "Bibliotheca Americana: A Dictionary of Books Relating to America, from Its Discovery to the Present Time, Volume 19". Bibliographical Society of America. p. 484. Retrieved 2018-10-11.
  7. ↑ Monique Polak (2017-02-11). "Slavery in Quebec: Shedding light on a largely unknown history". Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 2018-10-11.
  8. ↑ Sir James MacPherson Le Moine (1882). "Picturesque Quebec: A Sequel to Quebec Past and Present". Dawson brothers. p. 131. Retrieved 2018-10-11. The oldest inhabitant can yet recall, from memory, the spot where it stood, even if we had not the excellent drawing made of it with a half dozen of other Quebec views, by an officer in Wolfe's fleet, Captain Richard Short. It stood on the site recently occupied by the shambles, in the Upper Town, facing the Russell House. Captain Short's pencil bears again testimony to the exactitude, even in minute things, of Kalm's description: his Quebed horses, harnessed one before the other to cats. You see in front of the church, in Captain Short's sketch, three good sized horses, harnessed one before the other, drawing a heavily laden two-wheeled cart.
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