a life 20 ‘Happy beyond measure’: 21 a life Anne Gray McCUBBIN Last Impressions 1907–17 ‘Happy beyond measure’ Frederick’s mother, Anne, was a different character. and cityscape—painting places that he knew well At about the age of 13, his father found Frederick She was highly sensitive and was fond of music. Upon and that he loved. work as a clerk in the office of Withers, solicitors (in arrival in Melbourne she had begged her husband to Eden Chambers, Bank Place) in the hope that his Frederick’s mother encouraged her son’s talent take her home again. The couple stayed on, however, son would become a lawyer. Frederick’s job was to for art. She noticed his fondness for drawing and and when Alexander established his bakery at brought it to the attention of the local pastor, who copy legal papers—tedious and unimaginative work. 165 King Street, Melbourne, things improved. invited Frederick to visit him and lent him a volume But he had abundant free time and spent some of it exploring his creative side, sketching and making model Frederick’s parents had eight children, Frederick of The lives of the most eminent British painters by Allan theatres out of cardboard and colouring the scenes with being their third child and third son, born on Cunningham and gave him lithographs to copy.9 watercolour. He was inspired by the scene painting he 25 February 1855 on the premises of the bakery. Frederick also pored over prints and woodcuts in old had seen in the local theatres, and later recalled: ‘What He had two elder brothers, William John (who magazines, which were inevitably British in origin. delight I had in those scenes remembered from the became a flour miller) and James Alexander (who During his youth he discovered steel engravings of different plays I had been to.’16 When he was caught went to sea at an early age), as well as a younger France by JMW Turner, published in Wanderings by doing this, however, he lost his job. brother, Robert. He had four sisters, Mary Anne the Loire (1833), which greatly interested him. When (Dolly), Harriet (Polly), Wilhelmina (Minnie) and he was taken on a picnic to Studley Park one Sunday For the next three years his father employed him 22 Helen (Nellie).6 It was a busy, happy household, but afternoon he recalled these engravings: ‘I thought it a in the family bakery. Frederick started work early 23 one that was still coming to terms with life in their dream just like the engravings in Turner’s Wanderings in the morning, delivering bread by horse and 10 rederick McCubbin was a son of Melbourne. new country. As McCubbin later commented, the on the Loire.’ Even as late as around 1910, when he cart, travelling around the streets from the west He was born and brought up in working- world that his parents had left behind was often at wrote his ‘Autobiographical reminiscences’, he still Melbourne swamplands across the Yarra River at the 11 Fclass Melbourne, he trained and taught at the the forefront of their discussions: thought the engravings ‘looked beautiful’. Old Falls Bridge and on to Emerald Hill. He found National Gallery of Victoria’s art school, lived in Everybody who was grown up spoke of Home, the old When McCubbin was born, Melbourne was ‘the open air and variety of life had a charm’, so Melbourne and its surrounds for his entire life (bar Country—Memories of strings of immigrants—coming being rapidly transformed. Victoria had only just long as he could believe that he might one day paint 17 a few months), and made Melbourne the central up from the wharves—talks of ships and the sea— separated from New South Wales, and gold had only pictures. He gained visual impressions that would subject of his art. No other Melbourne artist was boarding houses … innumerable boxes—with titles recently been discovered at Mount Alexander near later inspire his images of Melbourne and the Yarra. better known than he during his lifetime. such as not wanted on the voyage—sailors—and the Castlemaine, and was soon discovered at Ballarat His contemporary, James MacDonald, noted that 12 while sitting on the cart Frederick dreamt endlessly: From what others have said we can easily imagine maid servants—who told us stories of old Ireland and and Bendigo. Thousands had rushed to seek their ‘He felt that if he could only paint pictures he would McCubbin. He had a gentle presence, and the air of a sometimes Scotland, then people from Home staying fortunes in the goldfields, creating a massive social want nothing else’; ‘a feeling of happiness began poet and dreamer. He was kindly, sincere and single- with us each bringing their quota of romantic stories upheaval. Melbourne quickly became the largest and 7 18 minded in his outlook. He was energetic, fun, warm of the Old World. richest city in Australia. During this time of rapid to creep over him’. Frederick also enjoyed the settlement and commercial growth the University waterside, and later remembered visiting the Yarra and gregarious—and would gesticulate freely with For these adults, including Frederick’s parents, of Melbourne was established (1853), the Melbourne one Sunday when a lovely south wind was blowing his arms and hands. He was a thinking man, and he not only was there nostalgia for the place they Public Library founded (1856) and the National and all the boats were decked with flags.19 This was liked to make others think and laugh; an extensive called ‘Home’, but there was also a sense of Gallery of Victoria created (1861).13 all formative subject matter for his art. and discriminating reader, particularly of biography discomfort about where they were now living. and high fiction, he enjoyed talking on a wide range As McCubbin recollected: During the 1860s, Frederick was educated at William Although McCubbin enjoyed this life, his father of topics.1 It was his habit to memorise what he read Willmott’s west Melbourne Common School and thought his son could do better, and in 1871, people said this was a dreadful country and why did and to deliver it to the first receptive friend he came then at St Pauls School in Swanston Street, where without consulting him, he apprenticed Frederick they ever come to such a dreary land—and then— across—whether at the opening of an exhibition or he acquired the rudiments of reading, writing and to the coach painter and wheelwright firm of 2 the awful Hot Winds that blew in summer—and the at a chance meeting on a tram. arithmetic.14 But school was never congenial to him.15 Stevenson and Elliott. For his father this was a fearful dust storms—and the dreary monotonous (previous pages) cat 51 Frederick McCubbin recognition of Frederick’s interest in art. He did bush—all the same—no variety, so sad—and sombre— Afterglow (Summer evening) 1912 Childhood and young manhood (1855–85) not understand the tedium of this work—painting They were a Home sick people.8 (detail) oil on canvas McCubbin’s father, Alexander, was a master baker. 91.5 x 117 cm coloured lines on wagon and buggy shafts and the He migrated to Australia from Girvan (Ayrshire, in This was an attitude that McCubbin visualised National Gallery of Australia, bodies of drays—and the great distance between this Canberra, purchased 1970 south-west Scotland) in April 1852 at the height in his early paintings, with their monotonous and his son’s aspirations. As a way of escape, Frederick 3 (above left) of the Australian gold rush, having married colours, but it was one which he dramatically John Sommers tried to qualify as a teacher of drawing in a state Anne McWilliams in London in 1848.4 He was a moved away from in his later work. In these last Frederick McCubbin at the age JMW Turner school, but was unsuccessful.20 Nonetheless, he did of twenty-one c1876 Scene on the Loire practical man, and seems to have been a proficient impressions he showed the beauty and variety pencil and charcoal on brown steel engraving come to appreciate the skills of his fellow workers paper 9.2 x 14.2 cm 21 businessman, but according to his son was of a of the country into which he had been born 34 x 26.4 cm reproduced from Leitch Ritchie, and to value their craftsmanship, developing naturally restless temperament and liked to act and he deliberately sought out the variety in the National Gallery of Victoria, Wanderings by the Loire, Longman, an admiration for honest labour which he later Melbourne, gift of Mr Hugh Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and without too much premeditation.5 bush and the rich colours of the Australian land McCubbin, 1962 Longman, London, 1833, p 172 conveyed in his art. McCUBBIN Last Impressions 1907–17 ‘Happy beyond measure’: a life that ‘no picture I have ever seen since can equal the Attending classes twice weekly at the School of charms that picture was to me … I walked on air’.26 Design, on Monday and Wednesday evenings, McCubbin worked assiduously. He sought a Thomas Clark moved to the recently founded art school at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1870, thorough artistic training, but instruction at the when he was appointed drawing master there. school was limited, and, to expand their knowledge McCubbin soon moved there as well, studying in the beyond what they could gain from their teachers, evening classes from 1872.27 Clark encouraged his or from copying Flaxman’s outline engravings of students to adopt a range of approaches, including Classical figures, he and Tom Roberts took it upon figure drawing and open-air sketching.