Australian Impressionist Painter Arthur Streeton (1867-1943) ~ Blog of an Art Admirer

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Australian Impressionist Painter Arthur Streeton (1867-1943)

Cremorne (also known as Mosman's Bay), 1914

Arthur Streeton started his art trainning in 1882 at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School.
Influenced by French Impressionism and the art of English Romantic painter Turner, Streeton presented his first exhibition at the Victorian Academy of Art in 1885.
In 1888, his landscape was the first of his paintings bought by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Arthur Streeton by George Lambert (1917)

In 1897 Arthur Streeton left for London where he had lived the most part of the following two decades returning to Australia for a short periods of time. Although the painter developed a considerable reputation in Australia, he didn't succeed much in England.
In early 1915, Streeton joined the Royal Army Medical Corps at the age of 48 and in 1937 he was knighted for services to the arts.

Venice Grand Canal, Grand Canal 1927

The Australian artist Lionel Lindsay (1874-1961) wrote in 1918:

"..We in Australia waited long for our national painter, and whilst he worked among us we failed to recognize this aspect of his genius. Twenty-five years have given us, however, a sense of perspective, and to-day we can see in the landscapes of Arthur Streeton, as in the poetry of Henry Kendall, genuine originality, a quality of race, the inspired vision of the native-born."

Early summer - gorse in bloom 1888

"..There is a gaiety, a lightness, in Streeton's work which is in the Australian sunlight itself, and has been expressed by no other artist. It is the expression in paint of the goodness of being alive in this fine land of ours. Actually, it is the first truthful and beautiful rendering of the light and colour and tone of Australia."

Still Life, Georgian Silver

Another Australian painter and teacher, Julian Ashton (1851-1942) wrote:

"He was cheerful and fond of company, and seemed to be quite uninterested in theories about art, but preoccupied with the task of
representing in terms of paint the beauty of the scenes before him."
"His colour sense was not subtle, but he was warmly appreciative of the general features of Australian colouration, and by hard continuous training his hand answered readily to every suggestion of colour..."