PRINT 'THE RECLAMATION' BY ERNEST SHINER RYAN
1934Large, portrait print on paper of 'The Reclamation' by Ernest Shiner Ryan. Colour print on glossy white paper showing the figure of Christ in the foreground, dressed in dark blue robes. He walks on an earthen path, shown behind him in the shape of a cross. The figure carries a black lamb in his arms, and in his left hand he holds a shepherd's crook. On either side of the path are well-kept green lawns and garden shrubbery. In the background, at the end of the path, stands a grey-walled building reminiscent in shape and design to the front entrance of Fremantle Prison. The sky above the prison is shown as dark grey. There is black text printed in the bottom right-hand corner, 'The Reclamation/Copyright No. 6568/by convict 6743'. Stamped on the reverse of the print in purple ink is, 'Ernest A. Ryan', and in black ink, '828'.
Donated by a visitor to Fremantle Prison, who told tour guides that this artwork was given to them by Shiner Ryan.
The original painting was done by Ryan while he was imprisoned at Fremantle in 1934. Ryan is reported to have said, 'This is not a religious picture. I haven’t got religion. . . . I've never gone down on my knees at the bedside and I don't do it now. But something prompted me to paint that picture, and I did it.' He said that the black sheep symbolised himself, 'the worst of a bad lot, and I'm not trying to hide it.' [Mirror, 5 December 1936, p.15]
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Ernest 'Shiner' Ryan was an artist who served time in Fremantle Prison during 1905, from 1932 to 1936 and again in 1938. Born in 1886, his criminal career began at an early age, when he was first charged with larceny at the age of 16. He is noted as being the first criminal to use a motor vehicle in a getaway, after he and Samuel Freeman robbed the Everleigh Railway Workshop in Sydney in 1914. Convicted of this crime, he spent ten years in a New South Wales gaol.
After his release, Shiner Ryan was sentenced to a further eight years imprisonment in Adelaide for breaking into a bank. His sentence was later increased after a skilful escape when Ryan managed to make clay moulds of the various locks in the Prison, from which he made his own set of keys and walked out the gates. When he was recaptured, Ryan presented the keys he had made to the Governor, who was so impressed with their workmanship that he added them to the official collection for the Prison’s regular use.
Once released from Adelaide, Ryan moved to Western Australia, where he was caught shop-breaking and first sentenced to time at Fremantle Prison. Whilst serving a later sentence at Fremantle in 1934, Ryan drafted the original drawing of his painting, The Reclamation. The painting, “symbolises the Saviour showing his love for mankind by reclaiming a black sheep of society - a prisoner who has just been released from gaol”. Following his release from Fremantle Prison, Ryan donated this painting, of which 400 copies were made and sold to raise funds for the Fremantle Citizens' Reception Council, an organisation that provided entertainment for serving troops.
Ryan also made model boats from glass, sand and other available materials, including porridge. His model ship, the Kathleen Anne was named after a friend. While serving time at Fremantle Prison, Ryan also looked after the Gatehouse clock. He is noted as being the only person in 50 years to make the clock keep time. It was also discovered that he had been making fake coins in the Prison’s workshop, when a senior Prison Officer was found spending them in Fremantle’s hotel bars.
After his release from Fremantle Prison, Ryan worked as a painter, well sinker, locksmith and watchmaker in the local area. Ryan then married Kate Leigh in 1950, though they separated six months later. By 1953 Ryan was in poor health from asthma, and could no longer work or pay rent. It is reported that one day he presented his landlord with a huge bunch of keys, jokingly saying, “Take these instead of rent, they’ll open any door in Fremantle”.
Ernest Shiner Ryan died in 1957, aged 71. The Mayor of Fremantle at the time, Frederick Samson, was a pallbearer at this funeral. When Kate Leigh heard the news, she proclaimed, “His brain was in his finger, he could open any lock with a coat hanger.”
