Arthur Ernest Streeton, nicknamed, 'Smike' was
born at Mt. Duneed, near Geelong in Victoria on 8th April 1867. He
studied drawing at the National Gallery School while at the same time he was
apprenticed to a lithographer. Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin discovered
him painting at Beaumaris, and together with Charles Conder they went on
sketching camps to Box Hill, Mentone and Eaglemont, near Heidelberg. In
1899 they held the inaugural 5'' x 7'' Impressionist Exhibition in
Melbourne.
Seeking wider experience Streeton sailed for
London in 1898 and while living in Chelsea he painted impressions of London and
the Thames. Returning to Melbourne in 1906, he held a very successful
exhibition and sent paintings to Europe and America where he received
considerable critical recognition.
During World War I, Streeton was commissioned as
an official War Artist in France and became a strong influence in creating a
distinctive Australian school of landscape and still life painters - the Heidelberg School.
He
maintained a high public profile and was knighted in 1937. Finally he settled
down in the lush greenery of Olinda, Victoria, where he died in 1943.
''His paintings are full of vitality, a fresh individual response to the land and an instinctive immediate reaction to the light and colour of Australia''.
In 1890 they moved from Melbourne to Little Sirius Cove in Sydney where many of the works they created were purchased by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
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