Studio: international art (86.1923)

AUSTRALIAN ART AT BURLINGTON HOUSE

"THE PELICAN.” WOODCUT
BY LIONEL LINDSAY

(Exhibition of Australian Art
Royal Academy, 1923)

pioneers in culture have to labour in a
young country so far removed from the art
centres of the Old World. Art schools in
Australia are of necessity poor and badly
equipped by comparison with those of
Europe, and but for the hard work and
enthusiasm of teachers like Julian Ashton,
of Sydney, only a fraction of what has been
accomplished could have been carried
through. The obvious disadvantage at
which figure-painters were placed in ob-
taining their training combined with the
climatic factor to give an impetus to land-
scape-painting. The early work of Streeton
is thought by many to be superior to that
which he produced later in Europe, while

J. J. Hilder, like Elioth Gruner, another
painter with a fine feeling for Australian
atmosphere, made his reputation entirely
in his native country. Hans Heysen, how-
ever, spent some years in the studios of
Europe before returning to his South
Australian farm and his loving interpreta-
tion of the gum-tree. And it is probable
that the clear luminosity of Ambrose
Patterson’s Collins Street, Melbourne might
have been less convincing had this artist
not studied for years in Paris. 0 0

Amongst portrait-painters who have
settled at home, Norman Carter, George
Bell, W. B. Mclnnes, H. B. Harrison and
Percy Leason make the strongest claim on

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