Knud Bull

Knud Bull
The Wreck of HMS George III
Born	(1811-09-10)10 September 1811
Died	23 December 1889(1889-12-23) (aged 78)
Nationality	Norwegian
Occupation	Painter
Relatives	Ole Bull (brother) Georg Andreas Bull (brother)

Knud Geelmuyden Bull (10 September 1811 – 23 December 1889) was a Norwegian painter and counterfeiter. He was convicted for delivering equipment for printing false bank notes, and was deported from Great Britain to Australia in 1846. Bull is regarded as a significant pioneer in Australian landscape painting, and is represented in the major Australian art museums.

Bull was born in Bergen, a son of pharmacist Johan Storm Bull and his wife Anna Dorothea Borse Geelmuyden. He was a brother of violinist Ole Bull and architect Georg Andreas Bull. He was an uncle of Edvard Hagerup Bull, Schak Bull and Henrik Bull, a granduncle of Sverre Hagerup Bull and a second cousin of Johan Randulf Bull and Anders Sandøe Ørsted Bull. He studied painting with J. C. Dahl in Dresden from 1833 to 1834

He married Mary Ann Bryen in Hobart, Tasmania, in 1852. He died in December 1889 in Sydney, Australia. He had five sons who all became painters, except one who died as a 2-year old.

While visiting Great Britain in 1845, Bull was caught for having prepared equipment for printing of false bank notes. In a trial at the Central Criminal Court in London in December 1845 he was sentenced to fourteen years deportation to Australia. He left Great Britain in May 1846, with the prison ship John Calvin. He was given opportunity to paint during the journey, and among his products were the paintings The Wreck of the Waterloo at Cape Town in 1842 and Aboard the John Calvin in the N.E. Trades near Madeira. He came to Norfolk Island in September 1846, and was transferred to the penal colony Saltwater River, Tasmania in 1847. He spent several years in Hobart from 1849, and was finally released from custody in 1853.