#074 Siegfried Weiss (1942–2020), Benson's Hotel, 1984

Etching with aquatint, printed in three colours on archival paper, no. 3 from an edition of 50. Inscribed and numbered lower left; signed and dated lower right. Plate mark: 19.75 x 29.75 cm; sheet: 25 x 35.5 cm; unframed.

Siegfried Burkhardt Weiß (Weiss) was a German painter, graphic artist, and professor of art history as well as "Ópa" (grandpa) of BNWPS student Leon G.-W. in grade 6. Weiss trained as an architect before taking the diploma in art teaching from the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, 1975–77. He taught art at secondary schools in Munich from 1978 to 2007 while also exhibiting at Galerie 42, Gießen, and the Haus der Kunst, Munich. As an art historian, Weiss published several books on nineteenth-century artists associated with the Düsseldorf School as well as an essay for the 2011 NGV exhibition, Nature Revealed, on the Düsseldorf-based artist Eugene Von Guérard.

On a visit to family in Melbourne, in 1984, Weiss stayed in Richmond and there produced a series of views of semi-derelict Victorian houses and Richmond pubs. Benson's Hotel, as it was then known, opened in the 1850s at 60 Swan Street as The Greyhound though the present building dates to 1926 (see Pubs of Cremorne, part 10, The Greyhound). Since the 1980s it has been known as Benson's Tavern, the Depot, and most recently The Precinct Hotel. Weiss exhibited these works with Niagara Galleries, Richmond, in 1984.