Podcast appearances and mentions of charles conder

Australian Impressionism is a large-scale exhibition of 270 artworks by some of Australia’s most widely recognisable and celebrated artists including Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, Jane Sutherland, Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder,... LEARN MORE The post She, Oak and Sunlight – Australian Impressionism and the National Gallery of Victoria Ian Potter Centre Federation Square appeared first on Sunday Arts Magazine.

The Forefront team gathers in the studio with all-new podcasting equipment for this latest arts review episode. 01:01 - Nate recommends some favorite episodes from other podcasts: Cooper and Cary Have Words, Between Dreams, and Redeemed Imagination 07:59 - Rich discusses some of his favorite Australian painters: Charles Conder, Arthur Streeton, and Frederick McCubbin  19:37 - Sean recalls tales from his adventures in the U.K. 24:11 - Cody reviews the new feature film 1917 and the short film Pastime

Charles Conder (Great Britain 1868–1909, Australia 1884–90), Hot wind 1889. Oil on board, 29.4 x 75.0 cm. Acquired with the assistance of the Sarah and Baillieu Myer Family Foundation 2006.

Charles Conder (Great Britain 1868–1909), Bronte Beach 1888, Oil on paper on cardboard, 22.6 x 33.0 cm. Purchased from Gallery admission charges 1982.

In 1888, Charles Conder painted with friend and fellow artist Tom Roberts at Coogee, Sydney. On the green hill over-looking the bay, they worked side by side.

In Charles Conder’s painting An early taste for literature, the milk pale has over-turned and a wandering cow munches on a magazine. Conder’s emphasis is the particular rather than the general.

Condor painted A Holiday at Mentone especially for land-booming Melbourne. It was a showpiece, produced after his move from Sydney where he had painted less elaborate beach scenes.

A decoration was once owned by Pickford Waller, an English designer and a collector of Conder’s work, as well as paintings by Spencer Gore, George Lambert, William Nicholson, Charles Shannon and Whistler. In his house in Pimlico, Waller placed this large decorative piece in a room that was entirely hung with Conder’s works. It includes features that are typical of Conder’s work, such as the oval medallion, wreaths and ribbons, and decorative borders.

The selector’s hut (Whelan on the log) is an iconic image of the ‘pioneering spirit’ that underpinned Australian nationalist attitudes of the late nineteenth century. Although most Australians lived in coastal cities and towns, it was the bush that was used as a symbol of Australian sentiment. In The selector’s hut (Whelan on the log) Arthur Streeton depicted these iconic elements of the land. The ‘blue and gold’ of sky and earth are encapsulated by the great scale of the sky, the golden grass and shimmering light, a slender silhouetted gum tree and a bush pioneer. By 1888 a railway had been constructed between Melbourne and the suburban fringe at Heidelberg. Towards the end of that year Streeton had set up ‘camp’ in an old house on Eaglemont estate, which was located close to Heidelberg at Mount Eagle. Mr C. M. Davies, part owner of the estate, had offered the house to the artist.1 Early in 1889 Streeton was joined by Charles Conder and Tom Roberts. The camp provided the perfect working environment–a reasonably isolated bush location that was still close to the city. Streeton found much inspiration in the area, nicknaming Eaglemont ‘our hill of gold’. Jack Whelan was the caretaker and farmer of the Eaglemont estate and shared the house with the artists over the summer of 1888–89. In The selector’s hut (Whelan on the log) Streeton has presented Whelan as a bush selector–a type of pioneering ‘hero’ who farmed the large properties of landowners. 1 Terence Lane, ‘Painting on the hill of gold: Heidelberg 1888–90’, in Terence Lane (ed.), Australian impressionism, Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2007, p. 123.

Charles Conder would have sat right by the water’s edge when he painted this joyous impression of Melbourne bay-side activity. Much of the scene is dominated by water – the reflective shallows of the foreground comprising a significant portion of the composition. Behind the strip of sand and rock a band of ocean stretches to the horizon.1 In this scene Conder explores the elements of light and colour and depicts the activity of visitors to the beach. Women in long dresses search for seashells, a small group watches a sailboat travel across the bay and a child paddles in the foreground. Working primarily in Sydney and Melbourne between 1884 and 1890, Conder suggested in much of his work the subtle moods and poetic qualities of nature. He painted with the energy and enthusiasm of a young man, delighting in the visual world around him and spurred on by the friendly rivalry of his painting companions, Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton. In Ricketts Point, Beaumaris his bold composition and free application of paint combine to form a picture that still looks fresh almost 120 years after it was completed. 1 Mary Eagle identifies this location as Ricketts Point. See Mary Eagle, The oil paintings of Charles Conder in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 1997, p. 61.

Harry Garlick painted The drover in response to the ‘Federation drought’, which began in 1895 and reached its climax in the summer of 1901–02. Officially lasting until 1903, the drought had a devastating effect on the sheep, cattle and wheat-farming industries throughout much of Australia. Garlick had painted earlier responses to the drought, such as Drought stricken1902 (present whereabouts unknown). It is possible that The drover was painted in the Orange or Bathurst regions of western New South Wales where Garlick was born and lived until 1896. In the heat of the midday sun a drover leads his flock along an arid stock route, the artist’s use of perspective emphasising the distance between the drover and his flock and the hills on the horizon. The drover is indicative of Garlick’s interest in pastoral scenes. As a young man he travelled each week from Orange to Bathurst to attend painting classes with Sydney painter Arthur Collingridge. After relocating to Sydney from Orange in 1896 he attended night classes with Julian Ashton, worked as a clerk and occasionally published drawings and cartoons in the Bulletin. Garlick was one of a number of artists, including Julian Ashton, Sydney Long, Charles Conder and Arthur Streeton, who visited Griffiths’s farm on the Richmond side of the Hawkesbury River on outdoor painting trips.

Clarice Beckett’s Sandringham Beach is a dynamic and modern composition of sand, bathing boxes and beach walkers. Beckett depicted the scene from an unusual perspective–from a cliff looking down onto the beach. Captured in the glare of a summer day, the smooth body of sand appears to shimmer with ‘white heat’. Backing onto scruffy vegetation, the bright stripes of the bathing boxes are the most solid aspects of the composition. While these beach shacks were a key motif in the artist’s oeuvre, it is the perspective Beckett explored and the use of colour that transform this image. She recorded her unusual view by even including a craggy ti-tree branch that sprawls across the centre of the picture. Sandringham Beachis one of Beckett’s largest paintings; she generally chose to work on smaller panels. In contrast to Charles Conder’s Ricketts Point, Beaumaris1890, the ocean only occupies a small portion of Beckett’s view. Painted around forty years after Conder, the beachgoers in Beckett’s composition are shown strolling along the water’s edge and a game of beach cricket is captured taking place between two young boys. The bright modern swimsuits and exposed skin of the walkers has been brushed onto the canvas with soft dabs of colour. The playful atmosphere of Sandringham Beach encapsulates Australia’s love affair with the beach as a key site of recreation and relaxation.