Arthur Streeton

We acknowledge the Gadigal, the traditional custodians of the Country on which the Art Gallery of New South Wales stands. Arthur Streeton, c1932, by Jack Cato. Source: Pictures collection, State Library of Victoria, H98.150 80 Arthur Streeton at the camp at Mosman, c1892-3, by unknown photographer. Source: State Library of NSW, P1/1707 Arthur Streeton, his son Oliver and wife in London, c1916, by Lena Connell. Source: Australian War Memorial, PO3451 004 One of Australia’s best known and most influential landscape painters, Arthur Streeton was a key member of the Heidelberg school of Australian impressionism – the first distinctively Australian school of painting. For many people, Streeton’s paintings defined a unique image of this country. He spent much of the early 20th century in Europe and served as war artist during the First World War, but later returned to Australia, where he also worked as an art critic. Streeton received little formal training in art beyond night classes at the National Gallery of Victoria school in Melbourne from 1882 to 1887, but his career developed after he met fellow artist Tom Roberts. Along with Frederick McCubbin, and later Charles Conder, he joined Roberts’s camps at Box Hill and Heidelberg in Victoria. Painting in the open air, they worked on representing Australia’s light, heat, space and distance. Streeton himself established an ongoing artists’ camp in 1888 at Eaglemont on the outskirts of Melbourne. In 1889 Streeton was a key contributor, with Roberts, McCubbin, Conder and others, to The 9 by 5 impression exhibition in Melbourne, which consisted of impressions of bush and city life rapidly painted on cigar box lids – including The national game 1889 and A road to the ranges 1889. Scorned by conservative critics, this groundbreaking show reinforced the group’s claim that they were creating a new type of art in Australia. Streeton travelled to London via Cairo in 1897, where he lived for the next three decades, with frequent return visits to Australia. Enlisting in the Australian army medical corps in 1915, he was appointed an official war artist in 1918. In paintings such as Villers Bretonneux 1918, he documented the Western Front, focusing on the devastated terrain rather than the drama of human suffering. Returning to Victoria in 1923, Streeton won the Wynne Prize in 1928, and in 1929 became art critic for the newspaper The Argus. He was knighted in 1937 and died at his property in Olinda, Victoria, in 1943. 'What thou amongst the leaves hast never known' Arthur Streeton 1896 159.1991 On display – Naala Nura, ground level, Grand Courts From my camp (Sirius Cove) Arthur Streeton 1896 193.1991 On display – Naala Nura, ground level, Grand Courts