Arthur Streeton

Arthur Streeton (1867–1943), painter, grew up in Geelong and Melbourne and attended night classes at the National Gallery School between 1882 and 1887. In 1886, he met Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts, who admired his paintings and invited him to join one of their painting camps on the outskirts of Melbourne. With Roberts, McCubbin and Charles Conder, Streeton was a core member of the group of landscape artists known as the ‘Heidelberg School’. In 1889 he painted Golden Summer, Eaglemont and exhibited 40 works – mostly painted on cedar cigar-box lids – in the ‘9 x 5 Impressions’ exhibition in Melbourne. He moved to Sydney the following year and lived for a time with Roberts and others in a harbourside bush camp near Mosman. Over the next several years, Streeton painted the ‘great, gold plains’, the harbour and pioneer scenes including the hot, bright 'Fire’s on' (1891). Streeton went to England in 1897 and remained there until 1923. He continued to paint landscapes on his return to Australia and became the art critic for the Argus in the late 1920s.