Introduction
Australia has a rich artistic tradition, stemming from its pioneer and convict origins; world-famous artists such as Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, and Charles Conder have undeniably left their mark on Australia’s cultural and artistic history.
In this article, we explain more about the life of Australian artist Arthur Ernest Streeton, his contribution to the nation’s cultural heritage, and his lasting influence on early Australian art.
Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton (1867–1943) was born in 1867 at Duneed, near Geelong in Victoria, on the 8th of April; he was an Australian impressionist painter and one of Australia’s best known and most influential landscape painters.
Arthur Streeton by Tom Roberts 1891 Art Gallery of New South Wales
His artwork is widely recognised as highly accomplished. He was a vital figure of the Heidelberg School, a group of Australian impressionist painters who worked in Melbourne from about 1885 to 1893.
The Streeton family moved to Richmond from the Geelong area in 1874; he began work as an import office Clerk and enrolled in night classes at the National Gallery School under Irish art teacher G. F. Folingsby in 1882.
This was the only professional art training he received other than that he was primarily self-taught. He became a lithographer’s apprentice in that same year.
The Heidelberg School
In 1886 fellow student from the National Gallery school Tom Roberts invited Streeton to join his painting excursion to Mentone, which proved to be a significant turning point in the young artist’s career.
This trip provided the first of many opportunities for Streeton to paint in the open air, and he immediately sought opportunities to sketch outdoors.
The Mentone camp was set up in the outdoors “Plein-air”, which inspired and deeply influenced Streeton; his works developed towards this new impressionist style that Roberts had bought back from Europe.
After selling a landscape in 1888, Streeton decided to abandon lithography and pursue art as his profession. His artistic skill matured quickly, and “Golden Summer” and “Still Glides the Stream” (1888) were among his most notable paintings.
Arthur Streeton “Golden Summer” (1889) Eaglemont
This period of Streeton’s career is most notable for the impact of his mentor, Tom Roberts, who had begun exhibiting in Melbourne at around this time.
Roberts was considered the leader of the ‘Heidelberg School Movement’. The ‘Heidelberg School’ were renowned for their close ties, including shared friendships, frequent locations, and joint interests in nature and social issues.
Streeton himself exhibited during this period, exhibiting “Settlers Camp” 1888 in Tom Roberts’s Grosvenor Chambers studio, Melbourne in the April of 1888. Victorian Artists’ Society, Autumn Exhibition, ‘Grosvenor Gallery’, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, April – May 1888.
Near the end of 1888, he moved into the farmhouse on the Eaglemont estate owned by Charles Davies. Here he painted some of his best-known works, including “Golden Summer” Eaglemont” (1889), “At Templestowe” (1889), “Still Glides the Stream” (1890), “Shall for Ever Glide” (1890), “Near Heidelberg” (1890), “Spring” (1890), “Above us the Great Grave Sky” (1890).
Arthur Streeton At Templestowe” (1889)
He lived in the farmhouse rent-free and shared the house with three other artists, Tom Roberts, Charles Conder and Walter Withers, plus tenant farmer Jack Whelan. Streeton painted Whelan sitting on a log on the Eaglemont estate in his 1890 work “The Selector’s Hut”.
Streeton and Charles Conder became close quickly and soon became influenced by one another’s work; Conder was a significant influence on Streeton, both often painting in the exact locations; the same views and subjects using a high-keyed “gold and blue” palette. Streeton believed in “Nature’s scheme of colour in Australia”; both artists painted with equal skill, imagination, subtlety, and delicacy of feeling.
The Eaglemont paintings became the benchmark for all his future works, representing him as one of Australia’s most accomplished landscape painters.
In 1889, Streeton became a founding member of the Victorian Artists’ Society, exhibiting in its Winter Exhibition in 1889. His work “Golden Summer” Eaglemont” (1889) was selected for this exhibition; it became one of his best-known works, and it has remained significant, “Golden Summer” is widely regarded as one of Streeton’s most influential pieces of art.
The Impressionist Exhibition
The 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition with Tom Roberts, Charles Conder and Frederick McCubbin was held whilst Streeton lived at Eaglemont; Streeton exhibited 40 works at the gallery exhibition, held in Buxton’s Art Gallery in Melbourne in 1889.
This exhibition was a watershed in Australian art history; its influence compared with the response of the first exhibition of modern Impressionist art in London in 1874.
The Eaglemont camp broke up in early 1890, in June Streeton having just sold “Still Glides the Stream” and “Shall for Ever Glide” to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, sailed to Sydney and stayed with his sister at Summer Hill.
The Mosman Bay Camps
Whilst in Sydney, he painted at Coogee, McMahons Point and Sirius Cove. There, he created significant works such as “Sunlight Sweet” Coogee (1890) (Art Gallery of New South Wales) and McMahons Point “Fare one Penny” (1890) (National Gallery of Australia), “Sirius Cove” (c. 1890)
Arthur Streeton McMahons Point Ferry (1890)
Streeton returned to Melbourne 1891, residing again in Eaglemont, and exhibited in Tom Roberts studio in Grosvenor Chambers, Melbourne. Later in that year, he departed from again for Sydney with Tom Roberts, arriving in September. He spent a further three months painting around Sydney, the Blue Mountains, and the Hawkesbury River, where he produced the work “Fire’s On” (1891) (Art Gallery of NSW).
Early in 1892, he continued to travel and work in Sydney and Melbourne. Finally, in late 1892, Streeton joined Roberts at Curlew Camp at Little Sirius Cove, a small inlet to the west of Mossman.
Here, he painted beautiful harbour views and beach scenes, plus nudes in the Art Nouveau style. The unique work at Curlew Camp was considered Streeton’s finest work in this period.
Streeton exhibited in Tom Roberts’s Spring Exhibition in Grosvenor Chambers Melbourne in 1893.
In 1893, he painted “The Railway Station” (Redfern Art Gallery of New South Wales) the same year he joined Roberts in Pitt Street, Sydney, to open a teaching studio. Late in 1893, he visited Northern New South Wales, and in 1895 he visited Melbourne, where he lived in Kew.
Arthur Streeton “The Railway Station” (1893)
He visited Adelaide in late 1895 and shared a teaching studio with Tom Roberts in Sydney in 1896; during this year also painted the area around Richmond along the Hawkesbury River. Producing significant landscape works such as ‘The Purple Noon’s Transparent Might’, (1896), which was shown at Streeton’s first solo show in Melbourne in the November of 1896 and purchased by the National Gallery of Victoria plus the artwork “The River”, (1896) (National Gallery of Victoria).
Streeton held this solo exhibition in Melbourne to show off his past and latest works. He called it a “Sydney Sunshine Exhibition.” Sales on the exhibition were to go towards funding his up-and-coming trip to Europe.
He left for Sydney for London aboard the Polynesian, stopping at Port Said before continuing to Cairo and Naples. He began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1900 and became a member of the Chelsea Arts Club in 1903.
Although his reputation was well developed in Australia, he didn’t have the same luck in England. His trips to London were financed by selling his paintings at home in Australia.
In early 1907, Streeton returned to Melbourne, travelling to Mount Macedon where he sketched and painted the bush and produced panoramic views from Mount Macedon, such as “Australia Felix” (1907).
He also held a very successful solo exhibition in May at the Upper Hibernian Hall in Melbourne exhibiting over one hundred paintings and watercolours, he produced in Australia and Europe such as: “Australia Felix”, “Windsor” (1904), “Chepstow”(1900), ” A Sunlit Mountain”(1907), “Chepstow Castle”(1902), “Allegory from Omar”(1905).
Arthur Streeton Australian Felix (1907)
Venice and Europe
Leaving for London in October, settling in Chelsea. In January 1908, married the Canadian violinist Esther Leonora Clench; the couple honeymooned for a month in Venice.
Streeton returns to Venice late that year, producing many works of art. In 1910, audiences at the exhibition Salon de la Société des Artistes Paris were able to see paintings that Arthur Streeton had done in Venice in September 1908.
The paintings included the masterpiece artwork of “The Grand Canal” (1908), which was exhibited again in Mr Streeton’s Pictures, Victorian Artists Society Gallery, Melbourne, June 1914
Between 1908 and 1923, Streeton lived in London. Other than a few brief visits to Australia in 1914 and 1919, plus short trips to Venice, France, and Canada.
Arthur Streeton “The Grand Canal” (1908)
His artworks began to draw attention in England and France, and then the United States, due partly to the increased exposure stemming from his wife’s extensive social connections and, no doubt, his incredible talent.
Along with other members of the Chelsea Arts Club in April of 1915, he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps alongside Tom Roberts, working at the 3rd London General Hospital Wandsworth. In 1918, he was appointed War Artist by the Australian government. He went on two tours of duty in France, painting the Western Front.
He sailed to Melbourne in 1919, arriving in February 1920, and painted in the Grampians “Beneath the peaks”, Grampians (1920) and the Dandenong Ranges.
Streeton bought five acres of land in Olinda in 1921 and painted several coastal scenes around Melbourne’s coastline, particularly Portsea, Sorrento, and Lorne.
In February 1922, Streeton left for Canada. He visited the United States and then sailed to London. Returning to Melbourne in 1923, he built a home called “Long Acres” on his property in Olinda, Victoria, in 1924.
It was Streeton’s final and most loved house and garden. He designed and planted the garden himself and had a significant role in the design of the house.
1928 Wynne Prize
He visited Queensland 1924, Sydney in 1926, and in early November 1927, painted in Trawool near Seymour in the Goulburn Valley; the artwork “Afternoon Light” was awarded the 1928 Wynne Prize for Landscape.
Streeton painted near Bright in 1931 the artwork “Hill and Cloud” Wandiligong, travelling to Corryong to paint the vistas towards Mount Kosciuszko the artwork “The Murray and the Mountain”.
In the years Streeton visited and lived in Olinda, he painted many panoramic landscapes, including artworks such as “Golden Afternoon” Olinda (1924), the artwork “View from Farmer’s” (1924) Olinda, the artwork “Silvan Dam'” (1930-31), and the artwork “The Cloud” (1936), a view towards Mount Macedon.
His Roses
Streeton also loved flowers, especially roses; Streeton’s interest in flowers began as a young artist. He first captured the beauty of these intimate gifts of nature as early as 1889, but his interest only grew as he aged; the highly productive soils in the Dandenong Ranges at ‘Longacre’s’ and his garden in Toorak provided abundant opportunities for gardener and artist.
His 1930 exhibition at Melbourne’s Fine Art Society Gallery included two oil paintings titled ‘Roses’. In 1931 he entered “Roses in Yellow and Red’.
The art critic for The Argus, Harold Herbert, wrote, ‘This love of flowers leads him to adopt a modality with painting which makes them delicate and visually intricately beautiful.
At the same gallery in Melbourne in 1932, he held a Roses exhibition; most of the oil paintings depicted his favorite flowers.
He was fascinated with roses, and he wrote an article on roses for The Argus in 1929. He also wrote for The Argus as an art critic from 1929 to 1935. He enjoyed his writing and contributed articles occasionally to the papers in the years 1925 – 1936.
Arthur Streeton “Roses”
In 1935, Arthur Streeton published his book ‘The Arthur Streeton Catalogue.’
In 1937, he was knighted for his service to the arts.
He died on 25 June 1943 at his home “Long Acres” Olinda, Victoria.
In Conclusion
No doubt Arthur Streeton was a fantastic talent; his role in developing impressionism in Australia is immeasurable. During his time, Streeton was a great Australian, and we should be honoured to have such a prolific artist in our country’s history, works that are still admired today.
Several his works have sold for substantial prices; because of the historical importance and popularity of his artworks, it’s expected that his prices for his artworks will continue to rise.
In years to come, perhaps there will be another artist to come along who can stand as a reflection of Arthur Streeton’s talent as it has stood the test of time. But, for now, I am proud to say that I have been able to learn more about one of Australia’s greatest artists and have thoroughly enjoyed bringing this article to you.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article on one of Australia’s most significant artists: Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton.
Hope you enjoy this article if you would like to add any information please feel free to leave a Reply below.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Streeton
https://www.deutscherandhackett.com/auction/lot/grand-canal-1908
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/famous-artists/arthur-streeton.htm
https://www.artistsfootsteps.com/html/Streeton_biography.htm
https://www.deutscherandhackett.com/auction/12-fine-art-auction/lot/roses-c1931