Australian Art 3- Landscape and the

Heidelberg School

The artists' camp (1886) Tom Roberts , oil on canvas , 46.0 x 60.9 cm Place of creation: Box Hill, Melbourne, Victoria Felton Bequest, 1943National Gallery of Victoria.

Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton

and Charles Conder are considered to have laid the

foundation of the great Heidelberg school of

Impressionism of the late nineteenth century in

Australia, and in doing so created the first truly

national school of Australian painting.

Heidelberg School Artists trail Melbourne Victoria

http://www.artiststrail.com/index.php?page=trail-map

WITHERS, Walter

England 1854 – Australia England, France 1887-88 The fossickers [(Cabbage tree flat, back creek)] 1893

Painting oil on canvas

67.7 (h) x 49.0 (w) cm Framed 88.5 (h) x 70.3 (w) x 10.9 (d) cm signed and dated l.l"Walter Withers /93"Gift of Mrs A de Bretteville 1969.NGA

Gold, gold, gold, gold!Bright and yellow, hard and cold; Molten, graven, hammered, rolled,Heavy to get, and light to hold;Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled.1

Fossickers were miners who searched through mined earth in the hope of finding undiscovered gold. In Walter Withers’s depiction the fossickers are almost camouflaged within the land, blending inconspicuously with the colours of the earth. Under a gum tree the two men take a break in the midday sun. In the foreground of the picture the artist has depicted the texture of the gum tree and rocks in sharp focus, while the large rock-face in the background has been eroded by the impact of heavy mining.

An English artist who arrived in Melbourne in 1883, Withers worked mostly around Heidelberg and Eltham. He visited the town of Creswick 18 kilometres north of Ballarat and 129 kilometres north-west of Melbourne where he painted landscapes and mining subjects. In January 1893 Withers conducted outdoor painting classes in Creswick.2 Percy Lindsay, who is known for his paintings of Creswick and the surrounding area, attended these classes as a young artist.

1 J. C. F. Johnson, Getting gold: a gold-mining handbook for practical men, London: Charles Griffin & Company, 1904, p. 1.2 Andrew McKenzie, Walter Withers: the forgotten manuscripts, Lilydale, Victoria: Mannagum Press, 1987, p. 120.

Percy Lindsey- Terrace houses lower George Street 1905. Private collection.

WITHERS, WALTER HERBERT (1854-1914), artist and teacher, was born on 22 October 1854 at Aston Manor, Warwickshire, England, son of Edwin Withers, roper, and his wife Sarah, née Welch. Sent to school at Sutton Coldfield, Walter later attended art classes at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and South Kensington schools before embarking for Australia at the behest of his father who opposed an artistic career. Breaking his journey at Port Said, he arrived in Melbourne on 1 January 1883 In 1904-05.

Withers was president of the Victorian Artists' Society. Becoming dissatisfied with that body, he joined a group of fellow professional artists who formed the Australian Art Association in 1912. He was one of the judges of the work of the National Gallery students for fourteen years and in 1912-14 was a trustee of the Public Library, museums and National Gallery of Victoria. Withers' daughter remembered him as six feet (183 cm) tall and solidly built, with brown hair slightly curling at the sides, big, soft, hazel eyes and a large, bushy moustache. Plagued by rheumatism and in later life by heart and lung disease, he died of cerebral thrombosis on 13 October 1914 at Eltham and was buried nearby in the Anglican churchyard at St Helena. His wife, four daughters and a son survived him.

Evening on the Yarra, Eaglemont

1887 Walter WITHERSMedium

oil on canvasMeasurements

41.1 x 30.7 cm

National Gallery of Victoria

 

The Heidelberg School originated in July 1891, when art

critic, Sidney Dickinson wrote a review of the exhibitions

of works by Walter Withers and Arthur Streeton. Dickinson

noted that these artists, whose works were mostly

painted in the Heidelberg area, could be considered as

‘The Heidelberg School’. Since that time, The Heidelberg

School has taken on a wider meaning and covers

Australian artists of the late nineteenth century who

painted plein-air in the impressionist tradition. These

artists were inspired by the beautiful landscapes of the

Yarra River and the unique light that typifies the

Australian bush.

Artists known to live and work in the Heidelberg area

Tudor St George TuckerEugene Von GuerardPenleigh BoydLouis BouvelotEmanuel Phillips FoxWilliam Nicholas Rowell

Heidelberg School

Charles CondorTom Roberts Arthur Streeton Walter Withers

Women Artists

Jane Sutherland Clara SouthernMay Vale Jane Price

E Phillips Fox (Australia, b.1865, d.1915) Art students oil on canvas 182.9 x 114.3cm stretcher; 204.0 x 134.0 x 9.5cm frame Purchased 1943 Art Gallery of NSW

The township of Heidelberg - first settled in the 1870s, as the name implies, by German migrants - became a household name throughout the art world in the late 1880s when painters inspired by the European Impressionists set up painting camps in the area.

Led by Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Frederick McCubbin, members of the Heidelberg School wandered round the western fringes of Melbourne to paint their impressionist landscapes.

The painters set up their original camps at Box Hill, but moved on to avoid the unwelcome attentions of curious locals.

Arthur Streeton(Australia 1867–1943)

A bush idyll Other titles:

What though amongst the leaves hast never known1896

Painting- oil on wood54.3 x 31.5cm board; 72.0 x 49.1 x 7.5cm frame

AGNSW

'This morning hot, windy, and warm, as I travel down the

line, & the mirage sizzling and jiggering over the railway

track. I arrive at my cutting, 'The fatal cutting', and

inwardly rejoice at the prosperous warmth all glowing

before me ... all is serene as I work & peg away ... 12

o'clock ... & now I hear 'Fire! Fire's on!', from the gang

close by ... BOOM! & then rumbling of rock. The navvy

under the rock with me, & watching, says, 'Man killed' ...

more shots & crashing rock we peep over; he lies all

hidden bar his legs. All the shots are now gone except

one, and all wait, not daring to go near; then men,

nippers, and a woman hurry down, ... and they raise the

rock and lift him on to the stretcher, fold his arms over his

chest, and slowly six of 'em carry him past me ...‘

Arthur Streeton, 1891

Arthur Streeton

Australia 1867 – Australia 1943 England 1898-1906, 1907-24

Fire's on [also known as 'Fire's on' Lapstone Tunnel] 1891 Painting oil on canvas

183.8 (h) x 122.5 (w) cm frame 204.7 (h) x 142.7 (w) x 60.0 (d) cm

Art Gallery of New South Wales - Purchased 1893

Slide number 44

'Fire's on' constitutes a radical new type of landscape in

Streeton's oeuvre and is possibly the artist's greatest

evocation of Australian heat and sunlight. Essentially an

enlarged sketch, it was begun in response to the Art

Gallery of New South Wales annual watercolour prize,

which encouraged artists to paint the picturesque scenery

of New South Wales.

Completed on site at the mouth of a railway tunnel under

construction in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, the

painting depicts the death of a railway worker in a

premature explosion. However, the human drama is

overshadowed by the heroism of the landscape itself.

Arthur Streeton (Australia, b.1867, d.1943) Blue Mountain TunnelCutting the tunnel, Blue Mountains Pencil, watercolour, Chinese white highlights on paper 73.6 x 58.5cm sheet Gift of Howard Hinton 1937Art Gallery of NSW collection.

This watercolour is not a study for the painting 'Fire's on' but an independent work, preceding the painting rather than following it, contrary to its inscribed date. Streeton enthusiastically referred to it in a letter to Frederick McCubbin in October 1891 (refer to Croll 'Smike to Bulldog' 1946, pg. 20-22) and it was included in the Gallery's exhibition of selected works from its watercolour competition of 1891. It also attracted the attention of a reviewer for the 'Sydney Morning Herald' who, on 1 December 1891, noted that this watercolour:

'... does not appear to have been viewed with favour by the trustees. But it will more than repay a second look, and there may be some visitors who might think its merits entitle it to a place beside some of the pictures chosen. The subject is a 'Blue Mountain Tunnel' and the choice appears to us to be as characteristic as the treatment is admirable. There is the iron track, with the sandy mounds turned up on each side, and the masses of rock through which the workers have driven their way - colour, tone and subject all strikingly real.'

Charles Conder, Dandenong from Heidelberg, (c.1889),oil on composition board, 11.5 x 23.5cm, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.

Amongst those who created the Heidelberg school in

Australia, Roberts brought it intellectual rigour, McCubbin

poetic nostalgia, and Streeton unbridled confidence.

Charles Conder gave it wings of imagination. Soon after

the school had reached its zenith, he left for Europe.

There, brilliant of vision, flawed in lifestyle, he became

one of the legendary figures of the fin de siècle. But it

was in Australia where his painterly language was formed.

Here, in its landscape, we may find the birth of his genius

and understand the remarkable and diverse journey it

took over two short decades.

Barry Pearce, Head Curator of Australian Art and Co-

Curator of the Charles Conder Retrospective

Moonrise 1909 Fredrick McCubbin, oil on canvas 77.0 x 92.0 cm Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the Government of Victoria, 1979 National gallery of Victoria.

The artist in societyEarly in their careers, none of the artists represented were able to support themselves through their art alone. Roberts worked as a photographer’s assistant and Streeton as a junior clerk prior to his apprenticeship as a lithographer. Conder initially trained as a surveyor in New South Wales and he supplemented his income working as an illustrator for The Illustrated Sydney News. Paid employment was not considered appropriate for middle class women and, although she later taught, Jane Sutherland was supported by her large liberal, artistic and musical family. Frederick McCubbin’s father ran a bakery in King Street and McCubbin worked in the family business as well as a stint as solicitor’s clerk and working as a coach painter during his art training. On his early morning bread delivery rounds he saw the variety of workers in the city, the ‘carters and carriers, dealers and merchants, pie men and builders, boatmen and river pilots, lightermen and sailors, shinglers and night men emptying the city’s human waste’. He recalled his days driving the horse drawn bakers cart:

‘I shall never forget the mud in winter-time down on the swamp – the tracks round the Gas Works, the timber laying about and the narrow shaves from being capsized en route, and Bully Browns cook, how he swore. And sometimes we got stuck in the mud…’

The pioneer 1904 Fredrick McCubbin, oil on canvas 225.0 x 295.7 cm Felton Bequest, 1906 National Gallery of Victoria

Developing nationalism

During the 1880s the sense that Australians were ‘Australian’, with

their own history and national character, gathered momentum. The

Colonies were not united as one nation until 1901, but the process

had begun with the establishment of the Federal Council in 1885.

The case for federation was persuasively argued in Banjo Paterson’s

editorial for the Bulletin, ‘Australia for the Australians’, Henry

Lawson’s, ‘United Division’ and Henry Parkes’s, ‘Tenterfield Oration’,

1889. A rush of centenary celebrations and jubilees – the 1870

centenary of Cook’s arrival in Australia, the Centennial Exhibition of

1888, celebrating one hundred years of British settlement, the

Golden Jubilees of Victoria (1884) and South Australia (1886) –

confirmed the emerging sense of national identity. Illustrated

publications such as The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia gave the

population an image of themselves and their achievements in their

new country.

 

Frederick McCubbin (Australia, b.1855, d.1917) On the wallaby track Painting, oil on canvas,122.0 x 223.5cm stretcher; 174.0 x 275.4 x 13.5cm frame Purchased 1897 Art Gallery of NSW,

Slide number 45

Among the best known and most popularly admired of Australian

paintings, 'On the Wallaby track' was McCubbin's tribute to a

generation that was almost past. In the context of a prevailing

nationalist mood leading towards Federation, he chose what was at

the time regarded as a characteristically Australian subject – a rural

family 'on the wallaby track', performing a ritual characteristic of

this life – that of boiling a 'billy' of water for tea. The title of the

painting 'On the wallaby track' was the colloquial Australian term

then used to describe those who lived a life constantly on the move

- camping out by the roadside as they travelled from place to place,

in search of work. McCubbin's painting heroises these people who

worked on the land, enduring poverty and hardship - as true

'pioneers' of Australian settlement.

At the time of its first exhibition in Melbourne in 1896, this

picture was seen as being a realistic depiction of the rural

realities of the early 1890s Depression - a critic writing that '… it

is human life. There is no attempt at idealization. The weariness

of the woman and her utter lack of romance are of that same

kind of fidelity to nature that Thomas Hardy gives in prose'.

Despite its rather melancholy subject, 'On the wallaby track' is

now viewed in a more romantic light by mainly city-dwelling

Australians - nostalgic for a connection to the land that for

many still epitomises the 'true Australia.

Born in Melbourne, McCubbin studied at the National Gallery of Victoria schools under eminent landscape painter Eugene von Guérard, later joining other artists who were beginning to paint in the open air, in the bush around the city outskirts. 'On the Wallaby track' was painted close to the artist's home in Melbourne using his wife, their young baby, and his brother-in-law as models. Key influences for McCubbin at this time as for his fellow artists, included the academic naturalism of Jules Bastien-Lepage and the new focus on local and everyday subjects by leading French Barbizon school artists Corot and Millet.

Jules BASTIEN-LEPAGE French 1848–1884 Season of October: The potato gatherers, 1878, oil on canvas 180.7 x 196.0 cm Felton Bequest 1928 National Gallery of Victoria

Roberts, Thomas William (Tom) (1856 - 1931), artist, was born on 9 March 1856 at Dorchester, Dorset, England, elder son of Richard Roberts, journalist, and his wife Matilda Agnes Cela, née Evans. Tom was educated at Dorchester Grammar School. After her husband's death Matilda and her three children migrated in 1869 to Melbourne where they lived at Collingwood. The first years were difficult for a poor family and Tom helped his mother to sew satchels after work. He soon became interested in art and studied at the Collingwood and Carlton artisans' schools of design in 1873; at the latter Louis Buvelot and Eugene von Guerard awarded him a prize for a landscape. In 1874 he joined the National Gallery School where he attended Thomas Clark’s classes in design. Though the school listed his occupation as photographer, his responsibilities at Stewart's, photographers in Bourke Street, were confined to arranging backdrops and studio sets and sometimes posing the sitters for portraits.

Tom Roberts Shearing the Rams oil on canvas on composition board 122.4 x 183.3 cm Place of creation: Corowa, New South Wales Felton Bequest, 1932 National Gallery of Victoria.

Slide number 46

During travel in London he was especially influenced by a variety of regional groups who eventually formed the nucleus of the New English Arts Club in 1886. Other strong influences were Whistler and the popular plein air painters such as Bastien Lepage and his British followers. Roberts toured Spain in 1883 with the future Labour politician Dr William Maloney and fellow artist John Peter Russell. Although he spent only a few weeks in Spain it was a joyous and formative experience which encouraged his naturalistic bent. Two Spanish painters he met in Granada, Lorreano Barrau and Ramon Casas, emphasized certain popular notions of Impressionism and plein air principles. In 1884 Roberts continued his pursuit of momentary effects in small studies of the seascape and several figure studies painted during a holiday at Venice—small exercises in a Whistlerian mode.

He returned to Melbourne in 1885 at precisely the right moment to instigate a new school of painting based on plein air practice which, in Australia as elsewhere, was allied to notions of nationalism and regionalism. Roberts's Melbourne colleagues immediately benefited from his experience; Arthur Streeton, for one, later claimed that 'Bulldog's' example was crucial. His sense of mission and enthusiasm were important in a period when painters and writers were seeking local self-definition. His dedication put him in the forefront of the group of painters which became known as the Heidelberg school.

Charles Conder, A holiday at Mentone 1888 oil on canvas 46.2 x 60.8 cm, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Slide number 47

CONDER, CHARLES EDWARD (1868-1909), painter, lithographer and

fan-designer, was born on 24 October 1868 in London, the third

child of James Conder and his first wife Ann, née Ayre. In 1870

Charles was taken to India where his father had been appointed

executive railway engineer but after his mother's death in 1873 the

boy was sent to England to be educated in Eastbourne. His father

strongly opposed Charles's wish to become an artist and sent him to

New South Wales to work under his uncle, William Jacomb Conder,

an official in the Lands Department. On 24 March 1884 Charles

sailed in the Windsor Castle and on 13 June arrived at Sydney.

There he worked in the office of the Lands Department and in

various trigonometrical survey camps in New South Wales,

combining surveying with sketching and writing affectionate letters

to William Conder's daughter Margaret Emma, most of which were

later destroyed

Charles Conder (Australia, England 24 Oct 1868–09 Feb 1909)The hot sands, Mustapha, Algiers Other titles: The hot sands, Mustapha, Flowers in a vase against a background of the coastline of Mustapha, Algiers 1891, oil on canvas 46.0 x 55.3cm stretcher; 63.0 x 72.0 x 7.2cm frame AGNSW

From October 1888 to April 1890 Conder settled in Melbourne; there he first shared a studio with Roberts, then rented his own at Melbourne Chambers and later at Gordon Chambers, both in Collins Street. Together with (Sir) Arthur Streeton, Roberts and other painters he spent the summers of 1888-89 and 1889-90 as well as many weekends at the Eaglemont 'camp' near Heidelberg; nicknamed K. he was affectionately received into this group closely bound together by brotherly feelings; thus began his friendship with Roberts and Streeton which continued for many years after he had left Australia. He joined Roberts, Streeton, Fredrick McCubbin and Charles Douglas Richardson in the exhibition of 9 x 5 impressions at Buxton Galleries, Swanston Street, on 17 August 1889 and contributed to the exhibitions of the Victorian Artists' Society of November 1888, May 1889 and March 1890.

He took up residence in London in 1894 but made frequent journeys to Normandy and Dieppe where he visited his friends J. E. Blanche and Fritz Thaulow and painted garden and beach scenes in oil.. On 5 December 1900 Conder married Stella Maris Belford, a Canadian, and for the next six years led a social life of ease and elegance. Since 1907 frequently confined to a sanatorium, he died on 9 February 1909 at Virginia Water, Surrey, where he was buried. His wife died in 1912; there were no children.

An old bee farm (c. 1900) Clara Southern oil on canvas 69.1 x 112.4 cm Place of creation: Warrandyte, Victoria Felton Bequest, 1942 National Gallery of Victoria.

SOUTHERN, CLARA (1860-1940), artist, was born on 3 October 1860 at Kyneton, Victoria, third surviving child of John Southern, farmer, and his wife Jane, née Elliott, both from England. A boarder at Trentham State School, Clara attended the Minerva Academy for girls, Kyneton, where she showed an aptitude for drawing and music. She enrolled at Madame Mouchette's Melbourne studio and later took lessons from Walter Withers. From 1883 to 1887 she studied at the National Gallery School, Melbourne, under G.F.Folingsby and Fredrick McCubbin. A tall, lithe beauty with reddish fair hair, she was nicknamed 'Panther' and became friends with fellow students E. M. 'Jo' Sweatman and Agnes 'Mama' Kirkwood. In January 1886 Southern — who was also a violinist — was admitted to the Buonarotti Society, a sketching club whose members included writers and musicians. From 1888 to 1900 she shared a studio with Jane Sutherland at fashionable Grosvenor Chambers in Collins Street where she gave painting lessons. In 1907 her landscapes were awarded a prize in the fine arts section of the Australian Exhibition of Women's Work.

Jane SutherlandObstruction, Box Hill (1887)41.3 x 31.1 cmBallarat Fine Art Gallery, VictoriaL. J. Wilson Bequest Fund, 1976

Jane Sutherland’s Obstruction, 1887, was probably painted on one of her visits to the camp at Box Hill. The little girl’s path is blocked, not by the Australian bush, where she seems to be quite at home, but by the bull on the other side of the fence. Sutherland’s painting is a reminder that the bushland that the artists painted was in fact a small pocket of bush in an area that was already settled, cultivated farming land. 

SUTHERLAND, JANE (1853-1928), painter and teacher, was born on

26 December 1853 in New York, eldest daughter of George

Sutherland, woodcarver, and his wife Jane, née Smith, both Scottish

born. The family arrived in Sydney in 1864 and moved to Melbourne

in 1870 where George became a drawing instructor with the

Department of Education and exhibited with the Victorian Academy

of Arts (1875-78). He was joined by his brothers, Alexander and John,

and the Sutherlands played a distinguished role in science, education

and the arts; Alexander, George and William were Jane's brothers.

At the National Gallery School of Design Jane studied under Thomas

Clark in 1871-75, O. R. Campbell in 1877-81 and Fredrick McCubbin in

1886. She attended the school of painting in 1877 under Eugene von

Guerard and in 1882-85 under George Folingsby. In October 1883 she

was awarded the Robert Wallen prize of five guineas at the annual

students' exhibition. She exhibited in 1878 with the Victorian

Academy of Arts, then with the Australian Artists' Association, and

with the Victorian Artists' Society (formed 1888) until 1911.

                                             

Charles Conder, Catalogue of the 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition, 1889

9x 5 Exhibition

In an article in Table Talk magazine on 28 June, 1889, Sophie Osmond explained Impressionism to her readers as ‘sketchy work, brilliant in colour but vague in design’ and alerted the public to a forthcoming exhibition of Impressionist works in Melbourne

“Now… the public will have the opportunity of judging for itself what Impressionism really is, for it is the intention of our Victorian artists to hold an ‘impressionist’ exhibition in Mr. Tom Roberts’s studio at the Grosvenor Chamber’s in about a month’s time. The three principals of the movement are Mr Tom Roberts, Mr Charles Conder and Mr. Arthur Streeton, who have taken the responsibility of the matter into their own hands. These three artists are generally considered to be the leaders of Impressionism here, while Fred McCubbin may possibly be added as a fourth…’’

                                                                                                                

Charles Conder Herrick’s blossoms (c.1889)oil on cardboard 13.1 x 24.0 cmNational Gallery of Australia, CanberraPurchased, 1969

The title of the 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition was inspired by the

dimensions of a majority of the paintings (nine inches by five inches

or 23cm x 13cm, approximately), as well as their Impressionist style.

Many of the paintings were painted on cigar box lids collected from

tobacconists, but just as many were most were painted on board.

There were also a number of paintings on canvas, and some

sculptured panels in wax and one in bronze.

.

                                                                                                                

Tom Roberts Mentone 1888 oil on wood panel 11.0 x 18.8 cmNational Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1955

 

The 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition reflected the artists’ awareness of

international art and artists, and a desire for their work to be seen in

that broader context. The influence of London–based American artist

James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) and Aestheticism was

particularly important for the 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition. The subtle

colour and tonal harmonies used to create mood and atmosphere in

many paintings, including Fog, Thames Embankment, c. 1884, which

Roberts painted while he was still in London, have clear links to

Whistler. The influence of Japanese art and design, which was so

important for Whistler and Aestheticism, is also evident in many of

the paintings in the 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition. For example, the

arrangement of strong simplified forms in a vertical format in

Andante has strong affinities with Japanese art. The delicate pink

blossoms on bare branches in Herrick’s blossoms, c.1888 by Conder

also have a decorative quality associated with Japanese art. The title

for this work refers to a poem by English poet Robert Herrick (1591–

1674), which highlights the fragile and fleeting quality of beauty, a

favourite theme in Aesthetic art and literature

Expatriates

John Peter Russell

Rupert Bunny

Emanuel Phillips Fox

G.W. Lambert

Hugh Ramsey

Max Meldrum

John Russell, Portrait of Van Gogh, 1886.Van Gogh, Museum, Amsterdam.

John Peter Russell (1858- 1930) Landscape with Houses in the distanceWatercolour pen and ink, gouache on wove paper 25.4x 32.5cm Art gallery of NSW

RUSSELL, JOHN PETER (1858-

1930), artist, was born on 16

June 1858 at Darlinghurst,

Sydney, eldest of four children

of John Russell, Scottish

engineer, and his wife

Charlotte Elizabeth, née

Nicholl, a Londoner. From 18

he trained as a 'gentleman

apprentice' with the

engineering firm in England,

where he became a qualified

engineer. He maintained his

childhood interest in art and

made his first experiments

with water-colour

John Peter Russell - Portrait of William Dodge Mac knight, c 1887, 55 x 47 cm

John Peter Russell, Rocher auchien, Clos marion, Belle-Lle, Oil on canvas, 20.5x 24.2 in 1903. Montreal Museum of Fine Arts?

In 1877 John Russell (senior) wound up his Sydney engineering works. He died suddenly in 1879: John Peter found himself with substantial means and freedom to choose his own career. After twelve months in Sydney to sort out his affairs, he enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London, on 5 January 1881. For some seven years he studied painting as it suited him, restless and unsettled, constantly breaking the routine for painting tours and holidays. He visited Spain in 1883 with Tom Roberts and Dr William Maloney, lifelong friends; another trip was to Sicily in 1887. In Paris on 8 February 1888 he married Auguste Rodin's beautiful Italian model Marianna Antoinetta Mattiocco. That year he settled at Belle Ile, off the coast of Brittany, and built Le Chateau Anglais.

Well-built and athletic, with a preference for rowing, boxing and sailing, Russell was warm-hearted: friendships were of the greatest importance to him. He keenly felt Roberts's return to Australia in 1885, while in Paris his friendship with van Gogh (whom he had met at Cormon's) is commemorated by his fine portrait-study now at the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam. His meeting with Claude Monet on Belle Ile in 1886 was of the greatest importance to his style of painting and Auguste Rodin was to become a well-loved family friend.

Rupert BUNNY 1864– 1947 Pastoral [Sea idyll Pastorale] c.1893Oil on canvas 142.0 h x 251.0 w Purchased 1969 National Gallery of Victoria

Rupert Bunny (1864– 1947) was conventionally of his time,

assimilating aspects of Symbolism and Aestheticism and adopting

similar allegorical subjects as a number of his European

contemporaries. Water was recurrent in his imagery; it had a special

role. The artist’s strong feelings about water can be traced back to

childhood, when he saw a group of people strangely dressed in long

white gowns walking into the sea near his home at St Kilda,

Melbourne. From where Bunny watched, he did not realise that the

solemn ceremony was a Christian ritual of baptism. Bunny’s first

lonely adult grief also involved water. Aged 19, he escorted his dying

father on a journey across the world to try the cure of the Karlsbad

waters. Bunny in adult life coped with personal stress – and the

rashes resulting from it – by bathing in warm water. Baths were, he

said, the only cure.

Rupert BUNNY (A triton's family). c.1898monoprint monotype, printed in colour, from one zinc plateprinted image 24.7 h x 34.2 w cm Purchased 1984 National Gallery of Victoria

Rupert Bunny (1864–1947) was one of

the most successful Australian painters

of his generation. In an era when artists

were increasingly drawn to Europe, no

other Australian achieved the artistic

accolades Bunny accumulated in Paris

in the 1890s and early 1900s. He was,

for example, the first

Australian to gain honours at the

prestigious exhibiting venue, the Paris

Salon. By the end of his career 13 of his

paintings had been acquired for French

state collections.

During his lifetime his art could be seen

in galleries in London, Paris, Brussels,

Edinburgh, St Petersburg and

Philadelphia.

Madame Melba (c. 1902) oil on canvas 245.5 x 153.0 cmRupert Bunny National Gallery of Victoria

                                                                                                                                                                                        

Rupert Bunny Beautiful afternoon in Royan (La Bel Apres Midi, Royan) c1910 oil on canvas 114.3 x 152cm Private collection

BUNNY, RUPERT CHARLES WULSTEN (1864-1947), artist, was born on 29

September 1864 at St Kilda, Melbourne,. Educated in St Kilda, Hobart, and in

Germany and Switzerland, in 1881 he enrolled at the University of Melbourne

to study civil engineering. Abandoning his studies in the hope of becoming an

actor, but frustrated by family opposition, he eventually joined the National

Gallery schools; his fellow students included Fredrick McCubbin, E Phillips Fox

and Louis Abrahams. In 1884 Bunny went to London and enrolled at P. H.

Calderon's art school in St John's Wood. Two years later he left for Paris to

study under Jean-Paul Laurens. Bunny exhibited at the Salon de la Société

des Artistes Français (Old Salon) from 1888, becoming the first Australian

painter to receive an honourable mention for his painting 'The Tritons'. He

also began exhibiting with British societies and galleries including the Royal

Academy, London, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Institute of Painters

in Oil-Colours, the Fine Art Society, and the New Gallery, Grosvenor, and

Grafton galleries. His participation in the Carnegie Institute's 'Pittsburgh

Internationals' was to continue for almost thirty years; he was awarded a

bronze medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, and was represented in the

Bendigo Victorian Gold Jubilee Exhibition of 1901-02. In 1901 he left the Paris

Old Salon for the New (Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts).

Hugh RAMSAY 1877 Glasgow, Scotland – Clydebank', Essendon, Melbourne , Victoria, Australia 1906 Australia 1878-1900, England and France 1900-02, Australia from 1902

Miss Nellie Patterson [Miss Nellie Patterson/Portrait of Miss Patterson] 1903oil on canvas 122.3 h x 92.2 w cm Purchased 1966National Gallery of Victoria

RAMSAY, HUGH (1877-1906), artist, was born on 25 May 1877 at Glasgow, Scotland, sixth son of John Ramsey, die-sinker and engraver, and his wife Margaret, née Thomson. In 1878 the family migrated to Melbourne. The Ramsays raised their nine children piously, from 1888 at the substantial family home, Clydebank, Essendon. Hugh attended Essendon Grammar School where in 1891 he was dux in his final year. Gifted in both art and music, he was organist and choirmaster at the Congregational Church, Ascot Vale.

In 1894 he entered the National Gallery schools under Bernard Hall and Fredrick McCubbin. Hall's teaching steeped Ramsay in the tonal tradition of Velasquez and stimulated his interest in the portraiture of Whistler and Manet. In 1897 he briefly attended classes with E Phillips Fox at Charterisville, Heidelberg. John Longstaff recognized Ramsay's promise, took a particular interest in his work, and remained a friend and mentor. Ramsay was a diligent student with a natural facility; his prize-winning was impressive, but he failed to gain the travelling scholarship in 1896 and 1899.

Determined to study in Europe, he sailed in September 1900, meeting on board George and Amy Lambert. In Paris he shared James MacDonald's studio, a dilapidated building at Montparnasse which housed other artists including Ambrose Patterson and the Americans Henry Ossawa Tanner and Frederick Freiseke. The Lamberts lived nearby. Both Ramsay and Lambert studied at the Académie Colarossi. Ramsay's visits to the Louvre to study Velasquez and the Old Masters improved his work. He painted from dawn till late at night and his influence on Patterson and Lambert became evident.

RAMSAY, Hugh Scotland 1877 – Australia 1906-03-05 Australia 1878-1900, England and France 1900-02, Australia from 1902

The lady in blue (Mr and Mrs J.S. MacDonald) 1902

Paintingoil on canvas172.0 (h) x 112.0 (w) cm Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, presented by the family of Hugh Ramsay in 1943

Bibliography

Ann Galbally, The Art of John Peter Russell, Sun Books Melbourne,1977.Robert Hughes, The Art of Australia, Penguin Books Australia, 1981.

Andrew Mackenzie Australian Dictionary of Biography. Online edition, http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A120618b.htm?hilite=Walter%3Bwitherscited 19/7/10Heidelberg School Artists Trail, The Artists http://www.artiststrail.com/index.php?page=the-artists cited 1/6/10Press Release Charles Condor, Art Gallery of NSW. http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/media/archives_2003?p=2608 cited 23/6/10Tom Roberts Australian Biography online http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110419b.htmCollection, Art Gallery of NSW, Arthur Streeton, Fires on Lapstone Tunnelhttp://collection.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/ cited 23/6/10 Artists footsteps, Charles Condor http://www.artistsfootsteps.com/html/vcc_conder_mentone.htmAustralian Impressionism, National Gallery of Victoria, Education supplement http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/australianimpressionism/education/insights_historic.html cited 23/6/10 The National Gallery of Victoria. Australian Impressionism. Insights, 9x 5 Exhibitionhttp://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/australianimpressionism/education/insights_9by5.htmlRupert Bunny education noteshttp://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/ed/resources/ed_kits/rupert_bunnycited 23/6/10 Russell, John Peter (1858 - 1930) Australian Biography online http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110493b.htm cited23/6/2010Hugh Ramsey Australian Biography online http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110338b.htm cited 2/6/ 10Ursula Hoff Australian Dictionary of Biography. Online edition, Charles Edward Condor, http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A030418b.htm cited 19/7 /10