Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton (8 April 1867 – 1 September 1943) was an Australian
landscapeLandscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
painter.
Early life
Streeton was born in
Mount DuneedMount Duneed is a suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The Geelong Airport is located in Mount Duneed. Though the airport continues to operate, the site is for sale as of July 2005 , and it appears likely that it will be demolished to make way for housing....
, near Geelong, and his family moved to
RichmondRichmond is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Yarra...
in 1874. In 1882, Streeton commenced art studies with G. F. Folingsby at the National Gallery School.
Streeton was influenced by French
ImpressionismImpressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
and the works of Turner. During this time he began his association with fellow artists
Frederick McCubbinFrederick McCubbin was an Australian painter who was prominent in the Heidelberg School, one of the more important periods in Australia's visual arts history....
and
Tom RobertsThomas William Roberts , usually known simply as Tom, was a prominent Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School.-Life:...
— at
MelbourneMelbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
including at
Box HillThe Box Hill artists’ camp was a site in Box Hill, Victoria, Australia favoured for plein air painting in the late 1880s by a group of artists who were part of a movement that later became known as the Heidelberg School....
and
HeidelbergHeidelberg is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 11 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Banyule....
. In 1885 Streeton presented his first exhibition at the Victorian Academy of Art. He found employment as an apprentice lithographer under
Charles TroedelCharles Troedel was a lithographic printer who championed printing in Melbourne during the late 19th century...
.
Eaglemont
In 1888 in his painting of the Yarra River valley,
Still glides the stream and shall forever glide (1888), Streeton shows a winding river in the middle of the picture and a landscape of bright yellowish goldish colour, very typically Australian. The painting was the first of his landscapes which was bought by a large art gallery, with the
Art Gallery of New South WalesThe Art Gallery of New South Wales , located in The Domain in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was established in 1897 and is the most important public gallery in Sydney and the fourth largest in Australia...
purchasing it in the same year that it was painted.
In 1897 Streeton sailed for London on the Polynesien, stopping at Port Said before continuing on via Cairo and Naples. He held an exhibition at the
Royal AcademyThe Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
in 1900 and became a member of the
Chelsea Arts ClubThe Chelsea Arts Club is a private members club located in London with a membership of over 2,400, including artists, poets, architects, writers, dancers, actors, musicians, photographers, and filmmakers...
in 1903. While Streeton had developed a considerable reputation in Australia, he failed to achieve the same success in England. His trips to London were financed by the sales of his paintings at home in Australia. His time in England reinforced a strong sense of patriotism towards the
British EmpireThe British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
and, like many, anticipated the coming war with Germany with some enthusiasm.
Streeton returned to Australia in 1906 and completed some paintings at Mount Macedon in February 1907 before returning to London in October. Streeton painted in
VeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
in September 1908 and the resulting works were exhibited in Australia in July 1909 as "Arthur Streeton's Venice".
Streeton returned to Australia in April 1914 to conduct exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne. He returned to England in early 1915 and, along with other members of the Chelsea Arts Club, including Tom Roberts, he joined the
Royal Army Medical CorpsThe Royal Army Medical Corps is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace...
(
British ArmyThe British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
) at the age of 48. He worked at the 3rd London General Hospital in
WandsworthWandsworth is a district of south London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is situated southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-Toponymy:...
and reached the rank of
corporalCorporal is a rank in use in some form by most militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. It is usually equivalent to NATO Rank Code OR-4....
.
Official War Artist
Streeton was made an Australian Official War Artist with the Australian Imperial Force, holding the rank of
lieutenantA lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
, and he travelled to France on 14 May 1918 and was attached to the 2nd Division.
As a war artist, Streeton continued to deal in landscapes. Streeton's wartime artworks have been criticised for failing to concentrate on the fighting soldiers.
Unlike the more famous
war artWar art is considered a genre of art. It is characterized by war, military subjects and war activities, as part of the wider field of military art. The distinction between war and military art is not clear-cut. The works described as war art represent a broad range of subject matter and styles....
depicting the definitive moments of battle, Streeton produced "military still life", capturing the everyday moments of the war. Streeton explained what was at that time an unconventional point-of-view — a perspective which was based in experience:
Later years
After the war, Streeton resumed painting in the
GrampiansThe Grampians National Park is a national park in Victoria, Australia, 235 kilometres west of Melbourne. The Park was listed on the Australian National Heritage List on 15 December 2006 for its outstanding natural beauty and being one of the richest indigenous rock art sites in south-eastern...
and
Dandenong RangesThe Dandenong Ranges are a set of low mountain ranges, rising to 633 metres at Mount Dandenong, approximately 35 km east of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia...
. Streeton built a house on five
acreThe acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
s (20,000 m²) at
OlindaOlinda is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 36 km east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Yarra Ranges. At the 2006 Census, Olinda had a population of 1568.-History:...
in the Dandenongs where he continued to paint. He won the
Wynne PrizeThe Wynne Prize is an Australian landscape painting or figure sculpture art prize. One of Australia's longest running art prizes, it was established in 1897 from the bequest of Richard Wynne...
in 1928 with
Afternoon Light, Goulburn Valley. He was an art critic for
The ArgusThe Argus was a morning daily newspaper in Melbourne established in 1846 and closed in 1957. Widely known as a conservative newspaper for most of its history, it adopted a left leaning approach from 1949...
from 1929 to 1935 and in 1937 was
knightA knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
ed for services to the arts. He married
Esther Leonora Clench-Biography:Born Esther Leonora Clench in St. Marys, Canada West, the daughter of L. M. Clench, Clench attended Loretto Convent in Hamilton, Ontario. A musical child prodigy, when she was fifteen she entered the Leipzig Conservatory in Germany, where she was a pupil of Adolph Brodsky, the Russian...
, a Canadian violinist, in 1908. Streeton died in September 1943. He is buried at Fern Tree Gully cemetery.
Prices
Streeton's paintings are amongst the most collectible of Australian artists and attracted high prices during his lifetime.
Golden Summer, Eaglemont was sold for around 1000 guineas in 1924 and in the 1980s it was bought in a private sale by the
National Gallery of AustraliaThe National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
for
US$The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
3.5 million, a price since considered excessive. In 1985,
Settler's Camp sold at
auctionAn auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...
for A$800,000 and this remained the record auction price for Streeton's work until 23 May 2005, when his 1890 painting,
Sunlight Sweet, Coogee, was sold for A$2.04 million (A$1.853 million before tax), becoming only the second painting by an Australian artist to exceed the A$2 million mark at auction (after
Frederick McCubbinFrederick McCubbin was an Australian painter who was prominent in the Heidelberg School, one of the more important periods in Australia's visual arts history....
's
Bush Idyll which sold for A$2.3 million in 1998).The painting was part of the
Foster's GroupFoster's Group is a beer group with interests in brewing and soft drinks. Foster's Group is the brewer of the Foster's Lager. Foster's Group Limited is a publicly-listed company on the Australian Securities Exchange and is based in Melbourne, Victoria...
collection and was sold at auction by
Sotheby'sSotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
.
Streeton's works appear in many major Australian galleries and museums, including the
Australian War MemorialThe Australian War Memorial is Australia's national memorial to the members of all its armed forces and supporting organisations who have died or participated in the wars of the Commonwealth of Australia...
,
National Gallery of VictoriaThe National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
, the
Art Gallery of New South WalesThe Art Gallery of New South Wales , located in The Domain in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was established in 1897 and is the most important public gallery in Sydney and the fourth largest in Australia...
and the
National Gallery of AustraliaThe National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
.
Love notes
Recently, a secret declaration of love has been discovered within one of Streeton's artworks. The inscriptions in his 1890 painting 'Spring' include the words "Florry Walker, my sweetheart". A female figure has also been discovered within the artwork. The figure was later painted over, but a faint outline can still be seen on close inspection.
The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) discovered the inscription under a microscope while restoring the painting.
Images
External links