15. Australian impressionist painters (Heidelberg School)

In the summer of 1886 and 1887, Australian Impressionist painters, Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin and Louis Abrahams walked to the Beaumaris cliffs from a rented house in rapidly developing Mentone. Roberts wrote of his meeting with the young apprentice lithographer Arthur Streeton who was ‘standing out on wet rocks painting’.  His work, commented Roberts, ‘was full of light and air’. Roberts, McCubbin, Streeton and later Charles Conder all painted memorable pictures of the shores of Beaumaris and Mentone, capturing the light, beauty and interest of the scenes.

Sketching and painting outdoors  (‘en plein air’) was important to the men and women who became known as the Australian Impressionists. In 1886 Roberts and others including Jane Sutherland, had camped at Box Hill, where Roberts sought to capture the light and colour of the bush. Later Streeton set up the artists’ camp at Eaglemont, near Heidelberg and the term Heidelberg School was coined.

Tom Roberts (1851–1931) was nicknamed Bulldog. He emigrated from England  to Melbourne in 1869 and later enrolled in the Gallery School, studied photography and anatomy and spent time in Europe. He led sketching expeditions with Frederick McCubbin, painted both outdoors and in the studio and organised the famous 9 by 5 exhibition. Roberts painted The Sunny South in 1887 at Ricketts Point.

Frederick McCubbin (1855-1917) was born in West Melbourne, the son of a baker and a mother who encouraged his painting. He worked as a solicitor’s clerk and was apprenticed to a coach painter. He sketched frequently and studied at the Gallery School, where he became the much loved drawing master known as The Prof. Perhaps McCubbin’s best known Bayside painting is Moyes Bay Beaumaris, 1887, also known as The Shore. (The Moyes is probably a version of Moysey – the name of the first British settlers in Beaumaris).

Arthur (later Sir Arthur) Streeton (1867-1943) nicknamed Smike by his friends, was the youngest of the group who painted at Beaumaris and Mentone in the summer of 1886-1887. His lively painting Mentone 1887 shows a young girl standing on a wave swept shore, which appears to be Ricketts Point rather than Mentone. Streeton worked as a clerk and later as an apprentice lithographer, painting in his spare time and studying at the Gallery School.

Charles Conder (1868-1909) who was born in Great Britain, arrived in Australia in 1884 and worked for two years in a country survey camp. He began art studies and following a meeting in Sydney with Tom Roberts in the summer of 1887-1888 became part of the group of young Australian Impressionists. He studied under Frederick McCubbin, taught painting to young ladies, and designed the cover for the 9 by 5 Impresssion exhibition. Conder painted the evocative Ricketts Point in 1890, then left for overseas.