Australian Art
Hand-painted Australian landscape in a Gold Ornate frame — one of three framing options, delivered ready to hang.
For most of the nineteenth century, painting in Australia looked European — soft northern greens for country that is grey-green and hard, gentle light for a sun that bleaches everything it touches.
That changed in the late 1880s, in a handful of artists' camps in the bush outside Melbourne. Tom Roberts came home from Europe in 1885 with the new plein-air ideas and set about persuading his friends to paint Australia as it actually looked. Frederick McCubbin and Arthur Streeton joined him at Box Hill, then at Eaglemont near Heidelberg, working outdoors in the heat.
Between them they arrived at something genuinely new: Streeton's high blue-and-gold summer glare, McCubbin's dry scrubby bush closing in around a solitary figure, Roberts's dusty shearing sheds full of working men. Within a generation these were the pictures Australians used to explain the country to themselves — and they still are.
They called their 1889 show the 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition, after the cedar cigar-box lids many of the 183 sketches were painted on. Critics dismissed the work as unfinished. It is now regarded as the moment Australian painting found its own voice.
The three painters
Tom Roberts1856–1931
Father of the Heidelberg School. Carried plein-air light into the shearing sheds and painted the national legend into being.
17 paintings
Arthur Streeton1867–1943
Bottled the blue-and-gold heat haze of an Australian summer, and taught the country to see its own landscape.
6 paintings
Frederick McCubbin1855–1917
The storyteller of the bush. Painted pioneers, swagmen and quiet endurance into the nation's memory.
15 paintings
Common questions about Australian art
Who are the most famous Australian painters?
Of the colonial and early modern period, the Heidelberg School painters are the best known — Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin and Charles Conder. Their work through the 1880s and 1890s produced most of the images now treated as national icons, including Shearing the Rams, Down on his Luck and The Pioneer.
What is the Heidelberg School?
A group of painters working around Melbourne in the late 1880s, named after Heidelberg — then rural country outside the city, where they set up an artists' camp at Eaglemont. They painted outdoors, directly from the landscape, and set out to record Australian light and Australian working life rather than importing European conventions. It is usually described as Australian Impressionism.
What was the 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition?
A show mounted in Melbourne in August 1889 by Roberts, Streeton, McCubbin, Conder and others. Most of the 183 works were small sketches painted on cedar cigar-box lids measuring roughly nine by five inches — hence the name. Reviewers at the time were dismissive of work they considered unfinished. It is now regarded as the moment Australian painting found its own voice.
What makes Australian landscape painting different?
Mostly the light and the colour of the country. Australian bush is grey-green, dry and dense rather than lush, with no clear focal point, and the sunlight is harsh enough to flatten shadow and bleach colour at midday. European painting had no conventions for any of that. The Heidelberg painters worked outdoors specifically to find them.
Where can I see these paintings in Australia?
The major works are spread across the state galleries. Shearing the Rams is at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Down on his Luck at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth, and significant holdings of Roberts, Streeton and McCubbin are at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.
Are these originals or prints?
Neither — they are hand-painted oil reproductions. Every painting is produced on artist canvas in oils by a professional artist, brushstroke by brushstroke. The originals of these works are in public collections and are not for sale.
Every painting below is 100% hand-painted in oils on canvas by professional artists — never a print, never a giclée. Framed and ready to hang, gallery wrap, or rolled canvas. Free delivery Australia-wide and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
