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Strutt's Australia Heroes and villains: Strutt’s Australia FREE EXHIBITION 14 JUL – 23 OCT 2016 Heroes and villains: Strutt’s Australia It is lamentable to see men of true genius wasting their powers on twaddling little sujets de genre when the pages of history offer such an abundance of splendid subjects ... Cover image: So wrote English artist William Strutt to James Smith, art critic for The Argus William Strutt, Black Thursday, newspaper, in 1861. Except for a stint of 18 months in New Zealand, Strutt February 6th, 1851, had been living in and around Melbourne since 1850 and, in that time, 1864, (detail) oil on canvas, the area had undergone an incredible transformation. When Strutt 106.5 x 343 cm, arrived, the gold rush was still a year away, Victoria was still part of State Library New South Wales, and the population of the ‘then unpretending but Victoria Gatefold image: prosperous city of Melbourne’ was around 20,000. Eleven years later, William Strutt, when Strutt wrote this letter to Smith, Melbourne had a population of study for more than 125,000, was the capital of a new colony – Victoria, – and Black Thursday, February 6th, 1851, was one the richest cities in the world. The pages of history were c. 1862, (detail) overflowing with significant events and a new catalogue of Australian pencil and wash, 22.5 x 112.7 cm, ‘heroic’ archetypes such as bushrangers, explorers and diggers were Rex Nan Kivell cementing themselves in the Australian consciousness. Strutt wanted Collection, National Library to transfer this drama to heroic, monumental canvases. of Australia William Strutt, Born in England in 1825, William An antipodean adventure self-portrait at Atelier Drolling, Strutt had the right pedigree to After a modest start to his career, Paris, c. 1840, become a painter. His father and spent mostly illustrating books, and (detail) pencil grandfather were both artists and and wash, a period of ill health, Strutt decided 12.1 x 14 cm, Strutt himself trained in Paris, then to ‘plunge into the unknown’. At the Rex Nan Kivell the centre of Western art. Collection, age of 24, he set out for Australia, National Library He began at the atelier of Michel- arriving in Melbourne on 5 July of Australia Martin Drolling in 1838, and was 1850. Strutt quickly found work as William Strutt, later accepted at the École des an illustrator but it was, as art portrait of John Beaux-Arts where he was instructed Pascoe Fawkner, historian Elisabeth Findlay notes, founder of by stalwarts of the French academic ‘the lucrative commissions for Melbourne, 1856, system, Horace Vernet and Paul large-scale portraits that allowed oil on canvas, 61.3 x 51.2 cm, Delaroche. The French Academy him to survive in the colony’. He National Library promoted a hierarchy of genres in painted portraits of John Pascoe of Australia which history painting – large, Fawkner (pioneer, politician and dramatic canvases of narrative the self-styled father of Melbourne), scenes – was considered the Governor Sir Edward Macarthur highest form of art. Its house style (the son of wool baron John at the time was the juste milieu Macarthur), Sir John O’Shanassy (middle way), a conservative (the second premier of Victoria), compromise between the restraint the Native Police Corps of Port and rigour of neoclassicism and the Philip, and the fabled explorer emotional charge of romanticism. Robert O’Hara Burke. After seven years in the academic system, Strutt emerged as a superb In addition to painting the great draughtsman and renderer of the and the good of the young colony, human figure, with an ability to Strutt also witnessed and recorded compose complex narrative works. some of the most important events in Victoria’s early history. He William Strutt, depicted the celebrations Returning home The little wanderers, 1865, watercolour, surrounding the separation of In 1862 Strutt returned to England 14.7 x 19.2 cm, Victoria from New South Wales in with his young family, and for the National Library of Australia 1851, life on the Victorian goldfields, next 50 years carved out an and the training of the Victorian unremarkable career as an artist William Strutt, study Volunteer Corps at Werribee in 1861. for Bushrangers, and teacher. He never returned Victoria, Australia, With the support of Fawkner, Strutt to Australia but did eventually 1852, 1886, had also planned to produce large pencil and wash, complete some large historical 52.7 x 36.3 cm, oils of both the opening of the works on colonial themes which Rex Nan Kivell Victorian Legislative Council in 1851 Collection, have become his most memorable National Library and of Parliament House in 1856. pictures. Melancholic, even of Australia Strutt attended both openings to apocalyptic, the works completed make the required preparatory in England are darker, emphasising drawings but both times, to his the dangers of life in Australia, frustration, the funds necessary to from the perils of the bush and the complete such large works could destructive power of cataclysmic not be raised. He extensively bushfires, to the terror of facing documented the Great Victorian bushrangers on remote roads. Expedition, led by Burke, at Royal Park in 1860 before it left The first and largest of his historical Melbourne on their heroic but works – Black Thursday, February ultimately doomed odyssey across 6th, 1851, painted in 1864 – was the continent. Strutt recorded inspired by a devastating bushfire ‘everything likely to be useful. No that consumed Victoria. Strutt detail, in a word, was neglected’, worked for three years on his perceiving ‘at once that this was a magnum opus: an epic panorama subject to paint’. He would depict featuring terrified crowds of people it on a large canvas, but not for and animals running for their lives. another 50 years. Black Thursday was praised in the English press, yet took decades to William Strutt, find a buyer. Strutt’s next large Strutt’s legacy Bushrangers, Victoria, Australia, colonial work – Bushrangers, That someone with Strutt’s training 1852, 1887, Victoria, Australia 1852, painted in and ability should visit Victoria oil on canvas, 75.7 x 156.6 cm, 1887 – was also based on a real-life ‘during a decade so significant in University of incident which took place during his her history’ is, art historian Heather Melbourne Art time in Australia: the bailing up of a Collection, gift Curnow has posited, ‘a fortunate of the Russell and group of people on St Kilda Road. coincidence’. Other talented Mab Grimwade Extensive preparatory sketches Bequest 1973 artists worked in Australia during of both works have survived, the 1850s and early 1860s, but providing valuable insight into Strutt’s ability to draw figures and how Strutt composed the pictures. direct large, complex compositions Strutt’s last big Australian canvas differentiated him from many of his was The burial of Burke, painted in colonial contemporaries. His 1911. In 1886 Dr William Gilbee, a pictures are distinctive and former trustee, left a bequest to the ambitious, a rare example of the National Gallery of Victoria for the intersection of French academic purpose of funding a large memorial training with Australian colonial painting based on the death of subject matter. Strutt wanted to Burke and Wills. Strutt desperately create epic pictures for what he wanted the commission but it was saw as an age rich ‘with splendid awarded in 1901 to John Longstaff, subjects’. He may have been an Australian artist living in England. frustrated by a failure to secure Disappointed, Strutt went ahead commissions for large canvases, with his own version, which was but several of his smaller paintings, based on the material he collected prints and drawings have a half a century earlier. It was Strutt’s grandeur and sense of history last significant work on an Australian seldom found in Australian art subject. He died, aged 89, four at that time. years after completing it. William Strutt, Decades after his death both References The burial of Burke, Heather Curnow, 1980, The life & art of 1911, oil on canvas, Black Thursday and The burial of 122.0 x 204.0 cm, Burke would find a home in the William Strutt, 1825–1915, Alister Taylor, State Library Martinborough, New Zealand Victoria Melbourne Public Library, now State Library Victoria. In 2016, Elisabeth Findlay, 2014, ‘Art and patronage in early colonial Melbourne: Heroes and villains: Strutt’s John Pascoe Fawkner and William Strutt’, Australia reunites these works The La Trobe Journal, no. 93–94, with other paintings, sketches September, pp. 35–50 and prints from major Australian George Mackaness (ed.), 1979, collections. Together these works The Australian journal of William Strutt, constitute the most comprehensive A.R.A., 1850–1862, vols 1 and 2, Review exhibition of Strutt’s Australian work Publications, Dubbo, NSW mounted in more than 30 years. William Strutt, letter to James Smith dated 25 October 1861, from ‘James Smith Papers’, ML MSS. 212/1, Mitchell Library Matthew Jones Exhibition Curator Enjoy free tours, talks, a sketching studio and more to complement your experience of this exhibition. Details available at slv.vic.gov.au/strutts-australia. Acknowledgements State Library Victoria is grateful to the many exhibition partners, lenders, copyright holders, staff and colleagues who have assisted with this project. Special thanks to our presenting partner, National Library of Australia, for developing this exhibition with State Library Victoria. Thank you to the exhibition lenders: Art Gallery of South Australia; Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne; National Gallery of Australia; National Gallery of Victoria; National Library of Australia; Parliament of Victoria and State Library of New South Wales. We also thank the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Porter’s Paints for their generous support.
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