Edwardians and expatriates
E. Phillips Fox | Australia/France 1865-1915 | Bathing hour (L'Heure de Bain) c.1909 | Oil on canvas | 183.5 x 113.3cm | Purchased 1946 | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Gallery 10B, QAG
Australian artists reaching maturity during the closing decades of the nineteenth century were born into a relatively prosperous society, well along the path from colonial outposts to Federation in 1901. However, the lure of Europe remained strong, and most ambitious painters or sculptors felt the need to study at the academies and ateliers of Paris and London.
Opportunities for private and public patronage were limited in Australia, particularly after the recession of the 1890s, and the wealthy circles of Paris and London offered the prospect of financial and social success. Many of the artists represented here became successful in Europe, but the triumph of having their work hung ‘on the line’ at either the Old or New Salons in Paris, or at London’s Royal Academy, did not guarantee success on their return home. Australian critics frequently lamented that these prodigal sons and daughters had lost sight of what it was to be an Australian artist, an important issue for the young nation. Arthur Streeton was the exception that proved the rule – he was unable to establish a reputation in London but was fêted as a founder of the national style in Australia.
One of the earliest paintings in this room, Josephine Muntz-Adams’s Care c.1893, represents the kind of narrative painting that was waning in popularity towards the end of the nineteenth century. In its place, painters such as E Philips Fox or John Russell, whose landscapes you can see on the wall opposite, followed the French example, breaking with academic traditions in favour of vibrant new styles. Alternatively, they took inspiration from the bravura style of American painter John Singer Sargent, with a new emphasis on the face and figure in its own right. Rupert Bunny, George W Lambert and Hugh Ramsay are Australia’s most prominent exponents of this style, which they honed in Paris and London.
Decorative art and decadence
The Edwardian period was characterised by opulence, excess and the collision of high society with the bohemian demimonde. Just as portraiture drew on the glamour of historical masters such as Anthony van Dyck or Thomas Gainsborough, the decorative arts revived the eighteenth-century taste for fêtes galantes – depictions of the pleasures of the aristocracy. Delicately coloured screens and decorative panels by French rococo painter Jean-Antoine Watteau served as examples for objects such as these, where a sinister decadence belies beautiful surfaces.
Charles Conder, familiar to Australian audiences as one of the so-called Heidelberg School artists, returned to Europe in 1890. Dividing his time between London and Paris – where he mixed with the bohemian inhabitants of Montmartre, the artists’ quarter – his associates included Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who sketched him socialising at the Moulin Rouge, and Louis Anquetin, who introduced him to the work of Watteau. Conder studied at the Académie Julian, where he learnt to paint on silk and befriended Arthur Blunt, from whom he rented a studio. Conder and Blunt collaborated on the making of this screen, which was shown in Conder’s first solo exhibition at the Carfax Gallery, London, in May 1899.
Thea Proctor commenced classes with Julian Ashton in Sydney in 1895 – a decade after Conder had been his student. She was friendly with George W Lambert and appeared in many of his portraits – such as the Portrait group (The mother) 1907 displayed in this room – after her arrival in London in 1903. Proctor took inspiration from the period costumes she and her companions wore to Art Society balls in Chelsea, and the exotic and decorative costumes the Ballet Russes. She was also interested in Conder’s fan designs, adopting this format for many works produced during her stay in London.
Landscapes abroad
Landscape painting was central for Australian artists throughout the nineteenth century. Prior to the establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, painting en plein air had attained special significance in a period of strengthening nationalist sentiment. However, the ‘Heidelberg School’ painters, like many Australian artists of the time, eventually found the call of Europe irresistible.
Works by both Charles Conder and Arthur Streeton are displayed here, but the artists had quite different experiences in Europe. Conder returned to England in 1890, eventually establishing a successful career and leading a life of Bohemian elegance in London, and never came back to Australia. He had taken Streeton’s painting Golden summer 1889 with him to exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1891, and it hung on the line in the Paris Salon the following year. Streeton himself arrived in London in 1897, but his subsequent success there was hard won. He returned to Australia permanently in 1923, where he remained immensely popular.
Firsthand contact with French Impressionism enriched the work of other Australian artists. E Phillips Fox returned from England in 1893 to set up a school in Melbourne with Tudor St George Tucker, based loosely on impressionist principles and informed by extensive travel.
John Russell spent the larger part of his artistic life in Europe, and of all the Australian artists, he had the closest contact with important European practitioners such as Van Gogh, Rodin, Matisse and Monet. The pictures he painted in Sicily in the spring of 1887 inspired Van Gogh to paint similar scenes in the south of France. The following year, Russell established a home on Belle-Île, an island off the coast of Brittany and a favourite subject for Monet. He did not return to live in Australia for nearly 40 years.
