Author: Wagner

Recognised as one of the most significant Australian painters and graphic artists of the twentieth century for his figurative and landscape works, Fred Williams was in the forefront of the Australian modern art movement. Williams was born in Richmond in 1927. Although he is considered to be a largely self-taught artist, he received his initial…

Elioth Gruner was born in 1882 at Gisborne, Poverty Bay in New Zealand to an Irish Mother (Mary Ann Brennan) and Norwegian Father (Elliott Gruner Snr). His family moved to Australia in 1883 where his art education began in 1894 at the age of 14, attending drawing lessons at the Julian Ashton Art School while…

Regarded one of Australia’s most gifted colourists and figure painters, Emanuel Phillips Fox became a greatly celebrated member of the art world for the way he captured the effects of sunlight in his works and combined Impressionist-oriented vision with academic training. Born in Fitzroy, Melbourne in 1865, Fox began his art education at the age…

Born in St Petersburg, Russia, 1873, George Washington Lambert arrived in Australia with his mother in 1887 where they took up residence at Eurobla, a sheep station near Warren owned by his great-uncle Robert Firth. Lambert’s art studies began in 1896 at Sydney’s Julian Ashton Art School where he was taught under the instruction of…

As a dexterous, eclectic painter whose work varied from large-scale compositions to highly decorative scenes of feminine familiarity, Rupert Chales Wulsten Bunny became celebrated as one of Australia’s finest artists and a key player in the modern art movement. Born at St Kilda, Melbourne in 1864, Rupert Bunny received an extensive education focused on the…

Born in Bruce Rock, Western Australia on 1 February 1923, John Perceval moved to Melbourne with his mother in 1934. Attending a local boarding school, Trinity Grammar, here he had his first access to a large library, where the school’s collection of art books left a profound impact on the teenager. Greatly influenced by Van…

Julian Ashton was an influential portrait and landscape artist, and teacher known for his vigorous support of the Australian Impressionist Heidelberg School to which his authority has been both powerful and extensive. Well-educated in artistic practices and theory Ashton attended the West London School of Art and the Academie Julian in Paris. It was at…