McCubbin | Down on his Luck
McCubbin | Down on his Luck
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- 100% hand-painted oil on canvas
- Delivered Framed & Ready to Hang!
- We stretch (Gallery Wrap) every canvas
- Hanging wire is attached to the back
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About Down on his Luck by Frederick McCubbin
McCubbin painted Down on his Luck in 1889 at the artists' camp at Box Hill, on the outskirts of Melbourne. A swagman sits by a small fire in the scrub, hat pushed back, staring at nothing. His billy is beside him. Nobody else is in the picture.
The man was not a swagman. He was Louis Abrahams, a fellow painter and friend, posing in borrowed clothes — which does nothing to reduce the picture's force. Australia was sliding towards the depression of the 1890s, and the figure of the man walking the country looking for work he would not find was becoming a familiar one.
What makes it more than an illustration of hard times is the bush. McCubbin gives roughly two-thirds of the canvas to dry scrub that has no focal point, no clearing, no path out — just an even, endless tangle of grey-green. The man is not resting in a landscape. He is enclosed by one. It hangs in the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth.
Down on his Luck at a glance
- Artist: Frederick McCubbin (1855–1917)
- Painted: 1889, Box Hill, Victoria
- Movement: Heidelberg School — Australian Impressionism
- Original: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
- Medium: Oil on canvas, 114.5 × 152.4 cm
Common questions about Down on his Luck
Where is Down on his Luck?
The Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth, which acquired it in 1896 — one of the earliest significant Australian paintings bought for a public collection in this country.
Who is the man in the painting?
Louis Abrahams, a painter friend of McCubbin's, posing as a swagman. He was a member of the same Melbourne circle and later a partner in his family's tobacco business.
What is the painting about?
A man out of work and out of options, sitting alone in the bush. It was painted at the beginning of the 1890s depression, when itinerant men walking between properties looking for work became a common sight. The title does the work the picture leaves unspoken.
Where was it painted?
At the artists' camp at Box Hill, then bushland on the edge of Melbourne and now an outer suburb. McCubbin, Tom Roberts and others camped and painted there through the late 1880s.
What is a swagman?
An itinerant worker who travelled on foot between rural properties carrying his belongings rolled in a blanket — the swag. The figure became central to Australian identity through the 1890s, in painting, in The Bulletin, and in Waltzing Matilda.
Own a hand-painted Down on his Luck
This is not a print. Every painting we sell is reproduced in oils on canvas, by hand, by professional artists — no giclée, no computer-generated technique.
Most of this canvas is bush, and McCubbin painted it the way it actually is — hundreds of small dry strokes of olive, grey and dull brown, none of them leading anywhere, with no clearing and no focal point to rest on. That scrubby, non-composing surface is the whole point: it is what encloses the man. It is also precisely the kind of dense small-scale detail that reproduction averages away, blurring into a soft brown-green wash that reads as generic woodland from anywhere in the world. Painted by hand in oils, the individual strokes survive, and the bush stays recognisably Australian — dry, scratchy and closed in.
- A range of sizes — choose yours above.
- Framed and ready to hang, gallery wrap, or rolled canvas if you would rather frame it yourself.
- 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions.
- Free delivery Australia-wide. Australian owned and operated, with a local contact you can actually reach.
Framing Options: You have 3 choices
Option 1. Choose an outer frame - see images below.
You only need to choose one and the painting will be sent to you framed and ready to hang.
* Below is an example of a customer who chose the Gold Ornate frame
Option 2: Choose a Gallery Wrap Stretched Painting.
If you want the frameless modern gallery wrap look then you only need to choose Stretched Gallery Wrap from the finish option dropdown.
You receive your stretched gallery wrap painting ready to hang - with a hanging wire attached behind.
The back of the Stretched Gallery Wrap looks like the image below - it has a hanging wire!
Option 3: Choose Canvas Only if you want to frame the painting yourself.
Your painting will be sent to you in an art tube - you can then frame it yourself or take it to your local framer.
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