Tom Roberts had a profound influence on Australian art. An organiser of the 1899 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition in Melbourne, he promoted the principles of Impressionism and painting en plein air (outdoors). He also advocated for quintessentially Australian subject matter, as seen in his famous landscape paintings such as Shearing the rams and A break away. However, portraiture was also an important part of his practice. This portrait of lawyer and judge Sir Alexander Campbell Onslow (1842–1908), the third Chief Justice of Western Australia, is thought to be a study for a larger, more formal commissioned work that seems never to have eventuated. It was painted in 1896, the year in which Roberts commenced work on a series of informal portraits of significant figures in Australian society, exhibited as ‘Familiar faces and figures’.
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2006
L Gordon Darling AC CMG (38 portraits supported)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Sarah Engledow is seduced by the portraits and the connections between the artists and their subjects in the exhibition Impressions: Painting light and life.
Dr. Sarah Engledow discovers the amazing life of Ms. Hilda Spong, little remembered star of the stage, who was captured in a portrait by Tom Roberts.
