Artists' camps flourished around
Sydney Harbour
Port Jackson, commonly known as Sydney Harbour, is a ria, natural harbour on the east coast of Australia, around which Sydney was built. It consists of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove River, Lane ...
in the 1880s and 1890s, mainly in the
Mosman
Mosman is a suburb on the Lower North Shore region of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mosman is located 8 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local governm ...
area making it "Australia's most painted suburb", but died out after the first decade of the twentieth century. They developed as a result of the enthusiasm for painting ''
en plein air
''En plein air'' (; French language, French for 'outdoors'), or plein-air painting, is the act of painting outdoors.
This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look. The theory of 'En plein ai ...
'' fostered by the
Barbizon
Barbizon () is a commune (town) in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France. It is located near the Fontainebleau Forest.
Demographics
The inhabitants are called ''Barbizonais''.
Art history
The Barbizon school of painters is n ...
and
Impressionist
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
movements in France in the second half of the 19th century, and were modelled on the artists' colonies which grew up in France and parts of the British Isles. In them, free-spirited young men gathered to live cheaply together in the open air, trying to capture the beauty of their surroundings in paintings and drawings. Financial stringency during the
depression of the 1890s made life in the camps even more attractive for Australian artists trying to establish themselves in a difficult market.
Balmoral
Some of the earliest camps, established before the spread of suburbia, were at
Balmoral Beach. One centred on the weekender built by
Bulletin
Bulletin or The Bulletin may refer to:
Periodicals (newspapers, magazines, journals)
* ''Bulletin'' (online newspaper), a Swedish online newspaper
* ''The Bulletin'' (Australian periodical), an Australian magazine (1880–2008)
** Bulletin De ...
cartoonist Livingston Hopkins "Hop" on land he leased near
Edwards Beach, in north Balmoral. Among the artists who joined Hop at the camp was
Julian Ashton, who, while teaching more formally at his school in the city, also encouraged his students to paint out-of-doors.
A.J. Daplyn, another keen promoter of the new style of landscape painting, also stayed at the camp, as did many of the artists working for
The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia (1886–89), including
Albert Henry Fullwood,
Frank P. Mahony,
John Mather and
Frederic Schell Frederic may refer to:
Places United States
* Frederic, Wisconsin, a village in Polk County
* Frederic Township, Michigan, a township in Crawford County
** Frederic, Michigan, an unincorporated community
Other uses
* Frederic (band), a Japanese ...
.
According to the custom of the time, women did not live in the camps. They were frequent visitors, however, and many women became enthusiastic landscape painters. Other notable visitors were writers
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll ...
, who spent a night at Balmoral under canvas, and
Ada Cambridge, who included lyrical descriptions of the camp in her 1891 novel ''
A Marked Man'' and later, in her ''
Thirty Years in Australia'' (1903). As she noted:
… a cluster of tents, a little garden, a woodstock, a water tub – almost hidden in the trees and bushes until one was close upon it; and the camp looked out upon the great gateway of the heads, and saw all the ships that passed through, voyaging to the distant world and back again.
Curlew Camp
Equally well known was
Curlew Camp, on the eastern shore of
Little Sirius Cove, below today's
Taronga Zoo
Taronga Zoo Sydney is a government-run public zoo located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, in the Lower North Shore suburb of Mosman, New South Wales, Mosman, on the shores of Port Jackson, Sydney Harbour. It offers great views of Sydney ...
. This had been set up by the
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road via Oxford Circus. It marks the notional boundary between the areas of Fitzrovia and Marylebone to t ...
businessman Reuben Brasch and his family, who came to stay at the camp by boat, crossing the harbour from
Parsley Bay.
The Melbourne painters
Tom Roberts
Thomas William Roberts (8 March 185614 September 1931) was an English-born Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism.
After studying in Melbourne, he travelled to Europe i ...
and
Arthur Streeton
Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton (8 April 1867 – 1 September 1943) was an Australian landscape painter and a leading member of the Heidelberg School, also known as Australian Impressionism.
Early life
Streeton was born in Mount Moriac, Victoria ...
moved to Sydney in the early 1890s, looking for wider opportunities to sell their work. Both spent considerable periods at Curlew and the paintings they did at this time, of Sydney Harbour, Mosman Bay and nearby
Cremorne Point, are among the masterpieces of Australian art.
Curlew was a well established camp, with many home comforts, including a billiards tent. Residents combined to pay a cook, and there was a youth to take care of odd jobs. Arthur Streeton described life there in evocative letters. His friend the composer
Marshall Hall, visiting from Melbourne, was inspired by the harbour setting to write his "Hymn to Sydney", which began:
City of laughing loveliness! Sun-girdled Queen!
Crowned with imperial morning, bejewelled with joy...
The art patron
Howard Hinton, a frequent visitor, came to know Roberts, Streeton and other painters at the camp. Some of the works he bought from them were donated to the
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most import ...
and many became part of the Hinton collection at the
Armidale
Armidale is a city in the Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, Australia. Armidale had a population of 23,967 as of the 2021 census. Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018. It is the administrative centre for the Northern Tablelands reg ...
Teachers' College. They can now be seen at the
New England Regional Art Museum.
Bohemians in the Bush

In 1991 the Art Gallery of New South Wales presented an exhibition, "Bohemians in the Bush", in celebration of the artists' camps, bringing together an impressive collection of works from the period.
[Albie Thoms, ''Bohemians in the Bush, The Artists' Camps of Mosman'', Art Gallery of NSW, 1991, (Exhibition Catalogue) ] The exhibition also aimed to recreate the social context in which the artists lived, and something of the atmosphere of the busy city where many of them earned their livings as teachers and illustrators.
At the time of the "Bohemians in the Bush" exhibition, the site of Curlew Camp was accessible only by water or bush track, and had reverted more or less to its natural condition. In order to ensure the preservation of this area, described as "one of the sacred sites of Australian painting", Mosman Council in 2005 commissioned a heritage study which recommended the creation of a Curlew Camp Artists' Walk, following the route taken from the Mosman ferry. It also recommended improved access to the camp site itself, construction of a viewing platform and interpretative signage. Work began on this project in 2007.
File:Sydney Harbour from Milson's Point Tom Roberts 1897.jpg, ''Sydney harbour from Milsons Point
Milsons Point is a suburb on the lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located three kilometres north of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of North Sydney.
Milsons Point is also the geo ...
'' by Tom Roberts
Thomas William Roberts (8 March 185614 September 1931) was an English-born Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism.
After studying in Melbourne, he travelled to Europe i ...
, 1897
File:Mosmans Bay John Mather 1889.png, ''Mosman's Bay'' by John Mather, 1889
File:Hymn to sydney Moffitt 1899.JPG, Frontispiece by Ernest Moffitt of Marshall Hall's "Hymn to Sydney", dedicated to Arthur Streeton
Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton (8 April 1867 – 1 September 1943) was an Australian landscape painter and a leading member of the Heidelberg School, also known as Australian Impressionism.
Early life
Streeton was born in Mount Moriac, Victoria ...
and the Artists' Camps
See also
* ''
One Summer Again
''One Summer Again'' is a 1985 Australian docudrama miniseries about the painter Tom Roberts and the Heidelberg School art movement. Set in and around the city of Melbourne in the late 19th century, the film traces Roberts' career and his relatio ...
'', 1985 docudrama
*
Art colony
Art colonies are organic congregations of artists in towns, villages and rural areas, who are often drawn to areas of natural beauty, the prior existence of other artists, art schools there, or a lower cost of living. They are typically mission ...
, especially
Montsalvat, an artist's colony in Eltham, Victoria, Australia, established by Justus Jörgensen in 1934.
References
Bibliography
* Julian Ashton, ''Now Came Still Evening On'', Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1941
* Leigh Astbury, ''Sunlight and Shadow, Australian Impressionist Painting, 1880–1900'', Bay Books, Sydney, 1989
* Ada Cambridge, ''Thirty Years in Australia'', Methuen, London, 1903
* AJ Daplyn, ''Landscape Painting From Nature in Australia'', WC Penfold, Sydney, 1902
* Ann Galbally and Anne Gray, ''Letters From Smike: The Letters of Arthur Streeton 1890–1943'', Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1989
*
Godden Mackay Logan, ''"Curlew Camp Artists' Walk: Interpretation Plan and Design Study", Report for Mosman Council'', 2006
* C.R. Mansell, ''Curlew Camp'', Lutterworth, London, 1954
*
Virginia Spate, ''Tom Roberts'' (revised edition), Lansdowne, Melbourne, 1978
External links
Article(
CC-by-sa) on "Artist's Camps" by Robin Tranter in the
Dictionary of Sydney
The Dictionary of Sydney is a digital humanities project to produce an online, expert-written encyclopaedia of all aspects of the history of Sydney.
Description
The Dictionary is a partnership between the City of Sydney, the University of Sydne ...
* Mosman counci
self guided walking toursand printabl
Curlew Camp artists walkbrochure
*
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and list of most visited art museums in the world, most visited art mu ...
essay o
Australian Impressionism "Sydney and the Hawkesbury" section.
Video(YouTube) of the Curlew Camp walk, filmed and narrated by the
Cumberland Courier (local newspaper syndicate)
Oral history recordingof John Dansie (2002) in "Mosman Voices" discussing Curlew Camp and Sirius Cove
{{center, 1=''This Wikipedia article is substantially built upon the essay
Artists' Camps in the
Dictionary of Sydney
The Dictionary of Sydney is a digital humanities project to produce an online, expert-written encyclopaedia of all aspects of the history of Sydney.
Description
The Dictionary is a partnership between the City of Sydney, the University of Sydne ...
written by Robin Tranter, 2008 and licensed under
CC by-sa
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and bui ...
. Imported on 14 January 2010.''
Australian artist groups and collectives
History of Sydney
Heidelberg School
Mosman, New South Wales