Australian art · Hand-painted oil on canvas

Gum scrub, shearing sheds and harbour light

Shearing sheds and drovers, gum scrub at dusk, wet sand and hard midday harbour light — thirty-eight Australian scenes in the Heidelberg tradition, each one hand-painted in oil on canvas by university-trained artists. Choose your size and finish, stretched or framed. Every piece is painted to order, so allow 21 to 28 days, with free delivery Australia-wide.

Shop Australian oil paintings Which size? See it to scale
Three hand-painted Australian oil paintings — a shearing shed, a gum bush clearing and a sunlit harbour beach — above a tan leather sofa
  • 100% hand-painted oil on canvas
  • Painted to order in your size, framed or stretched
  • Free delivery Australia-wide, 21 to 28 days
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
  • Rated 4.81/5 from 549 reviews

All 38 Australian oil paintings

Every print is made to order. Stretched ready to hang, or with a floating frame. 30-day money-back guarantee.

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Why Australian scenes

These paintings were built for harsh light, and they still are

The Heidelberg painters worked outdoors in glare, and their palette is the one that survives an Australian north-facing room.

Most European landscape work was painted under soft, diffused northern light, and it can look washed out on a bright Australian wall. The Australian scenes in this collection were composed under the opposite conditions: hard sun, bleached grass, strong shadow. Hand-painted in oil, the impasto in the sky and foreground catches afternoon light the way a flat reproduction never does, and the picture keeps its depth right through the middle of the day.

Hang bush and pastoral scenes where you can stand back at least two metres — the scrub reads as mush up close and resolves at distance. Over a sofa, aim for a canvas around two thirds of the sofa width, with the centre near 145cm from the floor. The ochre and olive palette wants warm whites, timber or brick behind it. Cool grey walls drain the gold out and make the whole thing look dirty.

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How your painting is made

  1. Choose the size and finishSeven standard sizes from 60 × 50cm to 200 × 135cm. Stretched ready to hang, rolled, or one of our frames. The size guide on every painting shows it to scale.
  2. Painted to order, by handA university-trained artist paints your piece in oils on canvas, working from the original. Two to three weeks at the easel, then drying time.
  3. Stretched, framed, checkedGallery-wrapped or framed in our workshop, then photographed and checked before it leaves.
  4. Delivered free, Australia-wideMade to order in 21 to 28 days, then tracked to your door. Thirty-day money-back guarantee if it isn't what you hoped.

Questions people ask

Is this a print or a real painting?

A real painting. Every piece is hand-painted in oils on canvas by a professional artist. Nothing here is printed, and nothing is a print with paint dabbed on top.

How close is it to the original?

Very. Our artists work from high-resolution references of the original and match composition, colour and brushwork. Because it is painted by hand, no two are identical, which is rather the point.

What sizes can I order?

Seven standard sizes, from 60 × 50cm up to 200 × 135cm, and custom sizes on request. Open the size guide on any painting to see each size to scale next to a sofa.

Framed or unframed?

Your choice at checkout: stretched and ready to hang, rolled in a tube, or framed in floating, classic or ornate frames. A floating frame adds a few centimetres each side; an ornate frame adds roughly 8 to 12cm.

How long does it take?

21 to 28 days, because it is painted to order. Delivery is free and tracked anywhere in Australia.

What if I don't love it?

Thirty-day money-back guarantee. Tell us within thirty days of delivery and we will make it right or refund you.

Gold ornate framed Australian landscape painting with gum trees hanging above a walnut sideboard in a sunlit living room

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

Portrait of Tom Roberts 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 Portrait of Arthur Streeton 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 Portrait of Frederick McCubbin Frederick McCubbin1855–1917 The storyteller of the bush. Painted pioneers, swagmen and quiet endurance into the nation's memory. 15 paintings
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.