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The first Australian artists arriving in Colonial Australia were confronted by a landscape so vastly different from their homelands. Not only did the traditions of European art and painting seem at odds with this strange and bewildering landscape, capturing the natural environment did not suit paintings styles of the period.
Artists such as convict John Eyre, who produced paintings and engravings in the first decade of the nineteenth century, and landscape painter Conrad Martens produced important works during early settlement.
John Glover (1767-1849) is recognised as one of the precursors of an Australian style of painting. A talented landscape painter, he arrived in Tasmania from England in 1831, and found new challenges and inspirations through the rolling landscapes and beautiful atmosphere of Tasmania. Here he began to push to boundaries of art and so began works with a true Australian quality.
The Heidelberg School is recognised as the first significant art movement in Australian artistic history. Evolving nationalistic sentiment led painters like Arthur Streeton, Fredrick McCubbin and Tom Roberts to confront the unique Australian landscape in ways unknown to European artists.
Tom Roberts was the first major painter to be selected to study at London’s Royal Academy of Arts in 1881. He studied impressionism in Europe and returned to Australia in 1885 and dedicated himself to painting the Australian bush. His most famous works include Shearing the Rams and A Break Away.
Frederick McCubbin became the first Australian born white artists of significance. As part of a nationalistic group of painters he was probably the most impressionistic. He held a long association with Roberts, who had a significant impact on his painting. McCubbin was one of the Heidelberg School’s leading lights.
The modernist movement is attributed to artists living and working in Sydney. Nora Simpson is widely accredited as motivating and influencing modernism in Australia when she returned to Sydney from Europe in 1913 with reproductions of French painters.
Other key artists in modernist work include Cossington Smith, whose painting titled The Sock Knitter is recognised as a key modernist work.
Margaret Preston is hailed as one of Australia’s most popular and productive painters. Well known for her works on Australia’s flora and fauna, Preston’s genius lies in her ability to interpret her natural surroundings with modernist techniques.
Of the symbolic surrealists Albert Tucker, Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan are amongst Australia’s most famous. All these painters developed a more spontaneous and visionary approach to art and are recognised for bringing a new and exciting dimension to a somewhat conservative Australian art scene.
Nolan, fixated with Australian icons such as Ned Kelly, has described his works as “a confused mix of landscape, animals, and Aboriginal culture, with a kind of bible overtone”.
Arthur Boyd is most celebrated for his series of Half-caste Bride paintings, inspired by time spent in Central Australia.
Russell Drysdale instils deep vision of Australia’s changing identity into his art works. Sofala is one of Drysdale’s most famous works and typifies the emptiness of the bush.
The 1950’s and 1960’s emerged with artistic battling between the conservative and modern forces in Australian art, or the ‘figs’ and ‘abs’ as they were referred to.
John Olsen focussed on the Australian landscape, tapping into the emerging image of the ‘Aussie Larrikin’. His most renowned works include the Lake Eyre paintings, Golden Summer and Clarendon.
Art in the 1960’s was largely influenced by abstract painting. Brett Whiteley is one of the finest examples and a leading light in Australia’s avant-garde art movement.
Whiteley is the only Australian artist ever to claim the Archibald, Sulman and Wynne art prizes.
Modern Australian continues to explore and push contemporary art boundaries and Australian artists enjoy increasing recognition both in Australia and overseas.
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