International studio (42.1910)

Henry Tebbitt, Australian Waler-Colour Painter

"the blue mountains at katoomba, new south wales" by henry tebbitt

of a monotonous grey-green, everywhere hang mystery of night as it envelops the margin of a

perpendicularly, a habit which Nature has estab- lonely forest, are so many poems which inspire

lished in order to counteract a too rapid him to translate them in terms of pictorial art.

evaporation. And he does so affectionately and caressingly.

That intimate study of Nature which marks all Nature has spoken to him in her own eloquent

Mr. Tebbitt's work has been well emphasised by way. He has listened with reverent attention to

a critic, who writes :— her voice, and he repeats her message with his

" Henry Tebbitt signs about twenty transcripts pencil."
from Nature, mostly finished productions, together These remarks were made on the occasion of

with a few sketches, full of freshness and vigour, Mr. Tebbitt's first exhibition in Melbourne, where,

executed with equal freedom and decision of notwithstanding a certain amount of adverse

touch, and a nice sense of form and colour. criticism, he succeeded in making a name and

Standing in the presence of so many and such disposing of many important works, notably

various examples of his masterly pencil, you feel Australian Giants (purchased for the Bendigo Art

that they bear the impress of genius, while they Gallery), one of the few pictures he has painted in

also testify to his unwearying industry, and verify oils, and many fine water-colour drawings, such

Wordsworth's assertion that— as The Majesty of the Blue Mountains, a work

'Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.' absolutely simple in its treatment but full of the

Mr. Tebbitt's affection for her, in every mood vastness which so characterises these mountains;

and under every aspect, finds expression in all the A Wet Day in the Bush, grey, solemn, dismal

scenes he depicts. He looks at her with the eye almost, but familiar to all those who know this

of an artist and the brain of a poet. Therefore country, with its gaunt spectral trees, denuded

his interpretations of Nature are not superficial or of their foliage by the process of "ring barking"

literal. By intuition and sympathy he divines her familiar to all Australians who work on the land

hidden meanings and develops those beauties and want grass instead of trees; The Tasman Sea

which are not discernible by the common eye of in one of her pacific moods—a deep blue sky—with

the prosaic observer. To Mr. Tebbitt the glow the blinding haze of heat on the horizon, a deep

of sunset, the repose of a landscape in the still blue sea, unruffled. These are the simple subjects

evening, when a holy calm settles down on the which have made Tebbitt famous in this land,

universal face of things, the placid surface of a where art a few decades ago was entirely at a

broad stream, reflecting every leaf and twig, the discount. To my mind, Mr. Tebbitt has done

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