Design and Art Australia Online

scene-painter, cartoonist and soldier, was born in Elsinore, Denmark on 22 April 1829, younger son of the Russian consul François de Habbe and younger brother of the painter Nikolai François Habbe whom he accompanied to Australia in 1855 after fighting in the European wars of 1848 and receiving a severe leg wound in the battle of Schleswig-Holstein. Having little success on the Victorian goldfields he became a scene-painter for theatres at Ballarat and Bendigo, including Ballarat’s Montezuma Theatre. By 1858 he was working as a scene-painter at Melbourne’s Theatre Royal then in 1860 moved to the Royal Victoria Theatre, Sydney. For the next few years he painted decorations, backdrops and scenery for Sydney’s new Prince of Wales Theatre from a studio in York Street, often in partnership with W. J. Wilson . According to contemporary reports, Habbe was entirely self-taught and learnt on the job – although having a professional painter for a brother was undoubtedly an asset.

In January 1863 when living at 155 William Street, Habbe exhibited a diorama illustrating the scenery of the Holy Land at the Sydney School of Arts. The Sydney Morning Herald considered it 'beautifully painted’. The following month a report that the diorama was on display at Maitland suggests he travelled it throughout NSW country towns. He was back in Sydney by 1867 when he and Wilson converted the Lyceum Theatre in York Street into an Alhambra-style ballroom. Early in 1868 Habbe and George Appleton painted several of the transparencies that were exhibited on public buildings for the Sydney visit of the Duke of Edinburgh, e.g. the Royal Mint had NSW on a throne, the Infirmary had a 'Good Samaritan’ and Parliament House had 2 ships, 'Britannia’ and 'Australia’. Habbe also produced drawings of the associated festivities for wood engravings in the Illustrated Sydney News , the most striking being his Harbour Illumination in Honour of the Visit of H.R.H. Prince Alfred to N.S.W. , issued as a supplement to the March issue.

By 1870 the Lyceum Theatre had become the Royal Adelphi and Habbe and Wilson painted the scenery for its new dramatic version of Faust , 'the scenes in the garden, in Margaret’s room, at the public fountain, and elsewhere’, in particular, being considered 'beautifully painted, perfect pictures in themselves’. At this time Habbe was still leasing the Adelphi with Wilson and a Mr Harding, but later that year he became a partner in Sydney’s Royal Victoria Theatre where he painted the scenery for productions such as London Assurance and Marcus Clarke’s Foul Play . He was also the designer and painter for Garnet Walch’s Trookulentos , an all-Australian pantomime produced in December 1871.

In 1872 Habbe and Walch moved to Melbourne where Habbe remained until his death. He painted 'magnificent and unequalled’ scenery for many of W.S. Lyster’s Opera House productions, including grand operas such as Lohengrin (1877) and opéras bouffes such as George Musgrove’s record-breaking production of La Fille du Tambour Major (1880). The striking transformation scene in Walch’s pantomime Australia Felix (1873), which revealed an illuminated working model of the new Melbourne Post Office clock chiming midnight, ran for up to twenty minutes and used real water in its last (seventh) scene, The Eastern Pagoda Expanding into the Shrine of Beauty and Cataract of Diamonds .

Habbe’s scenes painted for the Christmas pantomimes at the Opera House rivalled those of John Hennings at the Theatre Royal; both had their staunch admirers. Hennings’s forte was the moving panorama, Habbe’s the transformation scene. That for The King of the Peacocks in December 1876 was described by the Australasian Sketcher as

a series of leaf-and-flower scenes, of leaves and flowers of abnormal size and dazzling beauty, interspersed with the glowing Argus eyes of peacocks’ tails, and leading up to one final tableau, in which all is movement and such dazzling glitter, under the influence of limelight of intense power, that it is difficult to bring away, upon a first sight of it, anything like a clearly-defined recollection.

As usual, 'in answer to prolonged calls … [Habbe] made his appearance on the stage during the transformation scene, and was heartily cheered by the whole house’. A moving panorama painted for Robinson Crusoe in December 1879 was particularly admired. The subject, the Battle of Trafalgar, depicted 'The Deck of the Victory, Grand Panorama of the Battle, The Sailor’s Hornpipe, The Drill, Preparing for the Action, Battle and Death of Nelson, England Victorious, Rule Britannia’. A watercolour (Performing Arts Museum, Melbourne) stamped with the signature 'Alex Habbe’ has been identified by Mimi Colligan as the original design.

Habbe also drew cartoons. His First Arrival of Victorian Settlers was reproduced in Harry Emmet’s Theatrical Holiday Book (Melbourne, 1885). Kelly suggests that at least two of his panoramas in Walch’s pantomimes were parodies of the genre in black and white cartoon form.

Alexander Habbe died of cancer on 14 April 1896 and was buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery where a memorial was erected by professional artists and friends.

Writers:

Callaway, Anita
Kerr, Joan
Lennon, Jane

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

1989