Harold Septimus Power, usually known as H. Septimus Power or H. S. Power (31 December 1877 – 3 January 1951) was a New Zealand-born Australian artist, who was an official war artist for Australia in World War I.
Early life
Harold Septimus Power was born on 31 December 1877, in
Dunedin
Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...
,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
, to Peter Power, an Irish-born hatter, and his Scottish wife Jane (née Amers).
His family migrated to Australia when he was six. Despite his desire to become an artist his father sent him to study veterinary surgery for four years. Septimus befriended
Walter Withers
Walter Herbert Withers (22 October 1854 – 13 October 1914) was an English-born Australian landscape artist and a member of the Heidelberg School of Australian impressionists.
Biography
Withers was born at Handsworth, Staffordshire, the so ...
who advised his father to let his son become an artist.
Early paintings
After varied occupations, Power moved to
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
where he began his art studies. He exhibited in 1899 with the Melbourne Art Club then moved to Adelaide where he worked as an illustrator and
political cartoonist for the ''Adelaide Observer'', ''
South Australian Register
''The Register'', originally the ''South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register'', and later ''South Australian Register,'' was South Australia's first newspaper. It was first published in London in June 1836, moved to Adelaide in 1837, and f ...
'' and the ''Adelaide Critic''.
In 1904, he was commissioned by the trustees of the
Art Gallery of South Australia
The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), established as the National Gallery of South Australia in 1881, is located in Adelaide. It is the most significant visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of ...
to paint an animal scene. On 17 September of the same year, he married his first wife Isabel Laura Butterworth.
Between 1905 and 1907 Power studied at the
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number a ...
in Paris,
and later gained a teacher's diploma at the Paris School of Arts. Settling in London, he joined the
Royal Institute of Oil Painters
The Royal Institute of Oil Painters, also known as ROI, is an association of painters in London, England, and is the only major art society which features work done only in oil. It is a member society of the Federation of British Artists.
Histor ...
and the
Society of Animal Painters.
During this time, he also exhibited at the
Royal Academy of Arts
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...
, taught and painted in England, and returned to Australia in 1911 to hold his first one-man exhibition at the Guild Hall, Swanston Strreet, Melbourne, Australia in June 1913. During this exhibition he displayed oils and watercolours of rural landscapes that were used as backdrops for equine scenes and hunting.
He returned to England later that year.
World War I
After war broke out in the summer of 1914, the Australian government appointed official war artists to depict the activities of the
Australian Imperial Force in the European theater of war. Power was appointed in 1917 and was attached to the 1st Division, A.I.F. from September to December of that year and then again in August the following year. Official
War Artist during the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and was renowned for his depiction of
animal
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...
s,
in particular
horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...
s, on the field of
battle
A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...
.
After the war, Power was contracted by the
Australian War Records Section for the next two decades.
Between the wars
With
W. B. McInnes in 1927 Power painted the ceremonial opening of the Federal parliament. During the interwar period Power spent time both in Melbourne and overseas, exhibiting on periodic returns usually featuring a work recognised in the Royal Academy, fetching prices of prices of five hundred guineas even during the Depression (worth A$41,160.00 in 2021), and even by the 1970s when they were considered unfashionable they auctioned for around A$7,000.
He married his second wife Margery Isabel (née Desmazures) in Adelaide on 5 September 1936.
After 1945
Power was associated with conservative art as an exhibitor with Attorney-General Robert Menzies' Australian Academy of Art formed in Canberra in 1937 with Menzies as its inaugural chair. It aspired to principles of the British Academy and to advise government on artistic matters, but it failed to obtain a royal charter when opposed by the
Contemporary Art Society and other modernist groups, so its last annual exhibition was in 1947.
Nevertheless, Power's work was still highly regarded and fetched good prices in 1947; ''Draught Horses Drinking'' sold for 300 guineas (a value of A$20,660.00 in 2021). He conducted art lessons in his Melbourne School of Art on the corner of
Elizabeth Street and
Little Collins Streets where he was assisted by a previous disciple and fellow realist Max Middleton. Among his students were Ambrose Griffin,
Joan Lane,
Cathleen Edkins and
Janet Dawson
Janet Dawson MBE (born 1935) is an Australian artist who was a pioneer of abstract painting in Australia in the 1960s, having been introduced to abstraction during studies in England while she lived in Europe 1957–1960 She was also an accomp ...
who took his classes from the age of 11, between 1946 and 1949. She described him as "a funny old man
hoalways had an unlit hand-rolled cigarette on his lower lip, which jiggled up and down as he talked. He was very kindly, and also a very good technician, and just taught basic things."
In March 1949 Power joined Arnold Holst, Donald Campbell, Max Middleton, Michael King and Len Ferguson on a painting expedition to
Tallangatta.
In a 1950 interview headed "Modern Art Pathetic, Says Noted NZ. Artist,"
Power warns "beware of modern art," but is ambivalent; condemning
Russell Drysdale
Sir George Russell Drysdale (7 February 1912 – 29 June 1981), also known as Tass Drysdale, was an Australian artist. He won the prestigious Wynne Prize for ''Sofala'' in 1947, and represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1954. He was i ...
's
Melrose Prize
The South Australian Society of Arts was a society for artists in South Australia, later with a royal warrant renamed The Royal South Australian Society of Arts in 1935.
History
A meeting of persons interested in the formation of a society for the ...
-winning picture, ''Woman In a Landscape''," for conveying "a wrong impression of our back country," but stressing that by "'modernists' he does not mean modern artists," admitting that "many of these are doing good work in Australia today and deserve encouragement." He welcomed artists migrating to Australia, saying they would "provide a much-needed transfusion for the naiton's art."
Death and legacy
After a long illness, Power died at a private hospital in
Richmond
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States
* Richmond, London, a part of London
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, California, ...
, Melbourne, on 3 January 1951. Announcing his death, the Adelaide ''News'' reported that "Power received higher prices for his oils and water colors than any other living Australian artist."
He was buried with Presbyterian rites in Brighton cemetery. He was survived by his second wife Margery Isabel, née Desmazures and sons Harold and Hayden, the progeny of each of his marriages. He is well represented in public Australian galleries. Harold and Margery lived at 54 Crisp Street in
Hampton, where in 1952 his work was exhibited shortly after his death. A full-colour copy of his 1945 painting of a beach scene at Hampton can be seen on the bayside Coastal Art Trail at Hampton.
Reception
The unnamed ''Age'' newspaper critic singled out Power's work for first praise when shown at the Athenaeum Gallery in 1946 amongst others of the Australian Academy of Art;
the two paintings by H: Septimus Power predominate. Both show mastery of composition, atmosphere, color, general raclness and: vivacity: Looking at them one knows that the painter has a masterly grip of his trade. He paints things to look like what they are, and a thousand individuals will see them as real but interpret them differently. They are not photographic, or even literal; the art jargoniers will have to add to their lexicon in order to have new and approbious adjectives on hand to vilify work their candidates cannot do.
Reviewing his 1948 exhibition at Adelaide's Society of Arts gallery Esmond George in the Mail remarked that "Mr. Power invests all his work – pure landscapes, figures, and even frankly decorative material with the same intensity of conception and execution"
..in "a completely satisfying show which one may enjoy wholeheartedly, relishing alike the downrightness of the drawing, the strength and vigor of the painting, and the rich harmony of color."
Commissions
* 1904: Elder Bequest commission from the trustees of the AGSA, for an animal picture, ''After the Day's Toil''
*1927: Opening of the Federal parliament
* 1924: ''War'', a mural for the Public Library of Victoria
Collections
* National Gallery of Australia
* National Gallery of Victoria
* Art Gallery of New South Wales
* Art Gallery of South Australia
* Art Gallery of Western Australia
* Queensland Art Gallery
* The Sir Claude Hotchin OBE Art Collection,
Shire of Narrogin
The Shire of Narrogin is a local government area in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, about south-east of the state capital, Perth. The seat of government is in the town of Narrogin. Until 2016, when the two entities merged, the Na ...
See also
*
Australian official war artists
Australian official war artists are those who have been expressly employed by either the Australian War Memorial (AWM) or the Army Military History Section (or its antecedents). These artist soldiers depicted some aspect of war through art; this ...
*
War artist
*
War art
Military art is art with a military subject matter, regardless of its style or medium. The battle scene is one of the oldest types of art in developed civilizations, as rulers have always been keen to celebrate their victories and intimidate po ...
Bibliography
* Holden, Robert. (1988)
"Power, Harold Septimus (1877 - 1951),"''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Vol. 11. Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press.
* Reid, John B. (1977). ''Australian Artists at War: Compiled from the Australian War Memorial Collection.'' Volume 1. 1885–1925; Vol. 2 1940–1970. South Melbourne, Victoria: Sun Books.
OCLC 4035199
References
External links
Dictionary of Australian Artists Online, Harold Septimus PowerGravesite at Brighton General Cemetery (Vic)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Power, Harold Septimus
1877 births
1951 deaths
Australian painters
Australian war artists
Modern painters
Académie Julian alumni
New Zealand emigrants to Australia
Artists from Dunedin
World War I artists