Percy Stanhope Hobday

Born in Brisbane in 1879, Percy Stanhope Hobday received lessons in art by his father James Mayall Hobday, a regular exhibitor with the Queensland Art Society (QAS).

He attended Brisbane Technical College from 1896 where he studied under Richard Godfrey Rivers. He worked in a photographic studio for a time and regularly exhibited at the QAS. At one point he was joint president and served on the committee of QAS for fifty years.

His two sisters, Augusta (1884-1961) and Gladys (later Powell, 1891-1938), were also involved with the QAS. Percy and Augusta ran a commercial art studio in Brisbane, the Hobday Art Studio.

Hobday married Emily Florence Hingston in 1935 (her brother was the artist Arthur James Hingston (1875-1912). He died in Brisbane in 1951.

Hobday’s primary artform was landscape painting, but he was also a caricaturist and graphic designer. During the early 1930s Hobday began producing monotypes and included twenty seven in an exhibition at the Academy Salon Gallery, Sydney in 1934.