Arthur Streeton | Impressionist painter

Sir Arthur Streeton (1867-1943) was one of the foremost Australian Impressionist painters, and his paintings continue to count among the most iconic images of Australian art.

Streeton’s artistic training began aged 15, with night classes in design at Melbourne’s National Gallery School, while he worked as an office clerk and, later, as an apprentice lithographer.

He read amateur art manuals imported from Europe and America that encouraged painting en plein air.

While painting at Mentone Beach, south of Melbourne, Streeton met Tom Roberts (1856-1931), who invited him to join artists’ camps that he had helped found in the bush near Box Hill, to the west of the city.

Together with Roberts and Charles Conder (1868-1909), Streeton helped stage the '9 by 5 Impression Exhibition' in Melbourne in 1889, which served as something of a manifesto for this new generation of Australian painters who were embracing the looser, more open techniques of Impressionism.

Streeton moved to Sydney in 1890, after the Art Gallery of New South Wales purchased a large canvas of his, 'Still glides the stream, and shall for ever glide' (1890).

He was the first Australian-born artist to have a work exhibited at London’s Royal Academy - 'Golden Summer, Eaglemont' (1889) - but when he moved to London in 1897 he struggled to gain recognition.

Nonetheless, he stayed in England for around thirty years, sending work back to Australia.

During the First World War, Streeton served as a hospital orderly in London, and then as an official war artist with the Australian army. He was awarded a knighthood in 1937 for services to art. | © The National Gallery, London

Sir Arthur Streeton (8 aprile 1867 - 1 settembre 1943) è stato uno dei principali pittori impressionisti Australiani.

I suoi dipinti continuano a contare tra le immagini più iconiche dell'arte australiana.

Fu pittore di paesaggi molto prolifico, in stile impressionistico, simile a quello del suo amico Tom Roberts.

Tra il 1898-1924 trascorse la maggior parte del tempo all'estero (nel 1918 fu esponente della Official War Art nelle forze australiane in Francia).

Le sue opere divennero sempre più standardizzate, ma Streeton rimase molto popolare nel paese d’origine, considerato come colui che meglio di ogni altro aveva ritratto gli scenari più remoti e grandiosi del paesaggio australiano; insomma, fu finché visse quasi una istituzione nazionale.