Roberts, McCubbin, Streeton and Others Shaped Australian Impressionism

Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin shaped the first generation of Australian impressionism after studying together at the National Gallery School.

Roberts moved to Australia from England as a teenager and traveled to London and Paris during the early 1880s, where letters show he was captivated by Édouard Manet. He returned to Melbourne in 1885.

McCubbin remained in Australia and worked as an art instructor at the National Gallery School, teaching students who later formed the next wave of local impressionists.

Both artists drew on a naturalism similar to the Barbizon school to portray dry landscapes and hardworking white laborers.

Roberts painted “Shearing the Rams” in 1890, capturing a shearer manually holding a sheep with powerful arms. Wool was the nation’s largest export at the time and the backbone of its primary industry.

The painting hangs in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne as a portrait of a young nation’s workforce.

Streeton Captured Australian Light and Conder Exhibited in 1889

Arthur Streeton studied under McCubbin in night classes at the National Gallery School and earned Roberts’s attention without ever studying abroad.

Streeton captured the scorching Australian light and heat using gold and blue hues in works such as “The Transparent Might of the Purple Noon” painted in 1896 and housed in Melbourne.

His depictions of the local climate gave citizens a distinct sense of national identity, earning him recognition as a national painter.

Charles Conder spent roughly seven years in Australia between 1884 and 1890, taking part in the 1889 Nine by Five Impression Exhibition.

Conder moved to Europe in 1890 and spent his remaining years in France and England, associating with artists like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Oscar Wilde in Montmartre before dying of a stroke in England in 1909 at age 40.

Russell Connected Australian Artists to French Impressionism

John Russell studied alongside Vincent van Gogh at Fernand Cormon’s atelier in Paris and maintained correspondence with Van Gogh until the artist’s death.

Russell painted a portrait of Van Gogh in 1886 that now hangs in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

He also met Claude Monet at Belle-Île off the coast of Brittany in 1886, reflecting Monet’s rapid brushwork and color sensitivity in works like “Rochers de Belle-Île” from around 1900.

Russell connected Australian artists directly to the French impressionist movement.