Frederick McCubbin (1855 - 1917) The bush hut, 1911 oil on cedar panel 25.0 x 35.5 cm signed and dated lower left: F McCubbin / 1911 bears inscription verso: Bush Hut / 40 PROVENANCE John Rowell, Melbourne Thence by descent Joan Ackland, Melbourne Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Pictures by Fred and Louis McCubbin, Athenaeum Art Gallery, Melbourne, 14 August – 1 September 1912, cat. 40 (as 'Bush Hut')
Frederick McCubbin (1855 - 1917) Macedon landscape (View from Hesket), c.1910 – 1912 oil on canvas 58.0 x 78.0 cm signed lower right: F. McCubbin original John Thallon Frame, Melbourne PROVENANCE Mr Charles Mills, ‘Uardry’, Hay, New South Wales Thence by descent Private collection, New South Wales Thence by descent Private collection, New South Wales RELATED WORK Hauling rails for a fence, Mount Macedon, 1910, oil on canvas, 71.5 x 101.5 cm, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Forest camp, 1914, oil on canvas, 25.3 x 35.5 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne ESSAY A major influence in Frederick McCubbin’s long career was the imagery and philosophy of the Barbizon school of artists who painted within the Forests of Fontainebleau, fifty kilometres south of Paris, between the 1820s and 1880s. These artists, including Jean-François Millet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, were not only distinctive in their dedication to plein air painting; they were also driven by the challenge of how to integrate the figure within the landscape. A number of McCubbin’s major works – particularly Lost, 1886 (National Gallery of Victoria); Down on his luck, 1889 (Art Gallery of Western Australia), and The pioneer, 1904 (National Gallery of Victoria) – explore this same challenge. However, on his only overseas visit to England and France between July and October 1907, McCubbin encountered for the first time actual examples of the paintings of his many painting heroes, writing to Tom Roberts that ‘I actually thought I was somebody over in England, right up against Rembrandt, Turner, Velasquez, Gainsborough, Reynolds. I felt quite in good company.’1 He also saw works by Claude Monet and ‘seeing the materiality of so many light-drenched late Turners and French Impressionist pictures bolted McCubbin fully into the new late style towards which he was already tending.’2 After his return, his paintings became less populated and lighter in mood, utilising a new palette filled with pinks and soft greens applied with brush and palette knife. Some years before this, in 1901, McCubbin purchased a two-storey house in Glover Road, Mt Macedon, which he named, not so surprisingly, ‘Fontainbleau’, and the scrubby hills behind it provided the setting for a number of major works including The pioneer. It appears that Macedon landscape (View from Hesket), c.1910 – 12, was painted a kilometre away at the north-eastern foot of Mt Macedon near the village of Hesket which had been the centre of a timber industry that began in 1837. By the turn of the century, however, the majority of the local white gum, stringy-bark, messmate and peppermint trees had been felled though sufficient remained to support a small industry. In Macedon landscape (View from Hesket), a reflective McCubbin looks over the now-cleared fields from a position within the surviving scrub. At bottom left may be seen the blue-violet run of low ranges incorporating the Cobaw State Forest, also seen in Hauling rails for a fence, Mt Macedon, 1910 (National Gallery of Australia), with the scene described by McCubbin as being ‘a regular Millet.’3 He likely stood where Gallery School students would camp when visiting McCubbin, a site known as the ‘Old Garden’. ‘My father loved the spot,’ said daughter Kathleen Mangan. ‘It was about a mile from our cottage and it had a swampy area there full of that long grass that grows in swamps and also numerous bullfrogs.’4 By having a permanent base at Mt Macedon, McCubbin was able to immerse himself in the local environment as the Barbizon artists had done at Fontainbleau, charting Mt Macedon’s seasons and the variable light of each day. Critics too noted the quality of these radiant works, lauding the artist’s ‘remarkable skill in dealing with and realising the intricacies, colour and atmosphere of the Australian bush; especially… the artistic tangle of the undergrowth, and the charm of solitude and silence.’5 Notably, the painting’s original owner, Charles Mills, was the founder of the internationally renowned ‘Uardry’ sheep station in Western New South Wales. The continuing quality of their wool was of such importance to the Australian economy that one of Uardry’s prize merinos was the model for the image on the one-shilling coin in 1938.6 When in Melbourne, Mills lived in Toorak, not far from McCubbin’s home in Kensington Avenue, South Yarra. 1. Frederick McCubbin, Letter to Tom Roberts, late December 1907, cited in McKenzie, A., Frederick McCubbin 1855 – 1917: ‘The Proff’ and his art, Mannagum Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 269 2. Gray, A. (ed.), McCubbin: last impressions 1907 – 17, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2009, p. 17 3. Frederick McCubbin, Letter to Tom Roberts, 19 January 1910, cited in McKenzie, op. cit., p. 280 4. Kathleen Mangan, cited in McKenzie, ibid., p. 188 5. ‘Mr F. McCubbin. A distinguished artist’, The Argus, Melbourne, 21 December 1917, p. 11 6. Laurissa Smith, ‘Former jackeroo uncovers story behind shilling ram’, ABC News, 19 March 2014 at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2014-03-19/shilling-ram-book/5330800 (accessed 5 June 2026) ANDREW GAYNOR
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN 1855-1917 Poultry in the Bush (1908) oil on canvas 25.5 x 61 cm frame: original, John Thallon, Melbourne (label verso) PROVENANCE Frederick McCubbin, Melbourne The McCubbin Family, Melbourne, by descent from the above in 1917, until at least 1921 Professor and Mrs Hugo Myer, Melbourne, until The Magnificent Collection of Pictures: The Property of Hugo Myer, Decoration Co., Melbourne, 20 July 1923, no. 17 Mr and Mrs Baillieu, Melbourne Mrs Edward Shackell (Amy Adelaide Baillieu), Melbourne, by descent from the above Mr E. Lee Neil, Melbourne, by descent from the above Anne Neil, by descent from the above Fine Australian Paintings, Sotheby's Australia, Melbourne, 22 August 1994, lot 59, ‘Fowls at Mount Macedon', illustrated Tom Silver Fine Art, Sydney, acquired from the above Lee Johnstone and Brian Johnstone, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 22 August 1994 EXHIBITED (Probably) Catalogue of Paintings by the Late Frederick McCubbin, Victorian Artists' Society's Galleries, Melbourne, 27 September – 8 October 1921, no. 47 LITERATURE Geoffrey Smith, The Lee & Brian Johnstone Collection 1965-2019, Smith & Singer, Melbourne, 2020, pp. 100, 101 (illustrated)
McCUBBIN, Frederick (1855-1917) Flinders Street Station, Melbourne. Signed lower right. W/Clr 18x26cm PROVENANCE: Mr T.C. Cowdroy, Chairman and Director of H.M. Cowdroy Pty Ltd, Sydney; thence by descent. OTHER NOTES: For a related work see Deutscher-Menzies, Sydney December 8th 2004 (lot 89) 'Flinders Street Railway Station,' c.1911-12 (illus.)
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) A Seated Figure in a Macedon Landscape oil on canvas signed lower left: F.McCubbin 44.5 x 24cm PROVENANCE: Christie's, Melbourne, 24 November 1999, lot 181 (as 'A Seated Figure in a Macedon Landscape') Private collection, Melbourne OTHER NOTES: -Viewing in Sydney- Frederick McCubbin's deep connection to Mount Macedon is evident in the number of artworks he produced in and around the area from the early 1900s until his death in 1917. In 1901, McCubbin purchased a cottage named ‘Fontainebleau' in the Macedon Ranges, which became a retreat for the artist and his family. The name ‘Fontainebleau' was influenced by the forest near Paris where the Barbizon School painters had worked and sought inspiration in the mid nineteenth century. This French school of painting was part of the larger European movement towards naturalism in art which led to the establishment of Realism and influenced the young Impressionist artists. Surrounded by dense bushland, towering gums trees and dappled sunlight, the region provided McCubbin with a new sense of tranquillity and inspiration, shifting his palette towards more atmospheric and impressionistic tones. The Macedon Ranges became an importance place to the McCubbin family and a source of great inspiration to Frederick. McCubbin's daughter, Kathleen, wrote that her father's: ‘greatest love was the bushland at Mt Macedon. The mystique of the Australian bushland intrigued him: the sunlight glinting through the tall timbers, the secret colours in the abundant undergrowth, the call of the birds, and the whispering breeze'. (1) At Mount Macedon, McCubbin moved away from the narrative compositions of his early career and embraced a more introspective and expressive response to the landscape. The later works are characterised by loose brushwork, a softened palette, and a poetic evocation of the Australian bush. Macedon offered McCubbin not only a physical escape from the city but also a profound emotional and spiritual connection to nature; a space where he could reflect, observe, and create. Paintings from this period, often depicting the surrounding forests, ferns, and mountain air, mark a distinct chapter in McCubbin's oeuvre and underscore his enduring legacy as a founding figure of Australian Impressionism. (1) Mangan, K., Daisy Chains, War, The Jazz, Hutchison, Melbourne, 1984, p. 70
Frederick McCubbin (1855 - 1917) Garden at Kensington Road, South Yarra, 1909 watercolour on pre-prepared sketching board 27.0 x 18.5 cm (sheet) signed and dated lower right: F McCubbin / 1909 PROVENANCE Fred Scarlet, Melbourne, a gift from the artist Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne, a gift from the above
Frederick McCubbin (1855 - 1917) The Blackwood tree, 1911 oil on canvas on composition board 50.5 x 76.5 cm signed and dated lower right: F McCubbin / 1911 bears inscription on handwritten label verso: Col & Mrs. E. H. B. Neill / ‘The Blackwood Tree’/ No: 79. Fred McCubbin PROVENANCE Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs E. H. B. Neill, Melbourne (inscribed on label verso) Thence by descent Private collection, United Kingdom EXHIBITED The Paintings of the Late Frederick McCubbin, The New Gallery, Melbourne, 25 November - 9 December 1924, cat. 1 ESSAY In the distinguished three-quarter-length self-portrait that Frederick McCubbin painted the year after The Blackwood tree, 1911, the artist is shown as he was fondly remembered by his Gallery School students – a wise and gracious presence, enlivened by a luxuriant moustache. McCubbin was then at a stable yet inspired period of his life. Previously, on his sole journey to Europe in 1907, he had seen significant works by masters such as Rubens, Turner, and Constable, whom he felt had ‘caught it alive’1 and upon his return to Australia, his palette changed as he pursued these new understandings. Further, ‘McCubbin no longer found it necessary to tell narratives, or to people the landscape. Instead he painted images radiant with colour and energy.’2 Close friend Arthur Streeton saw this as an ongoing quest for ‘freedom and fresh knowledge’3, and the transformation was also popular with gallery audiences, with one critic noting in 1911 that McCubbin’s ‘colour is fuller and richer than ever, and each canvas reveals his sensitiveness [sic.] to the beauties which are offered often in apparently the most commonplace subjects.'4 All such elements may be found in The Blackwood tree, which was painted the same year as the magnificent Violet and gold (National Gallery of Australia) where ‘there are portions in which he handled his paint so freely that he almost splattered it over the coarse canvas – animating it with flecks of colour, layering pure colour upon colour.’5 A similar strategy appears in The Blackwood tree and similarly, both were painted near the McCubbin family’s country property ‘Fontainebleau’ at Mt Macedon – a place where ‘he didn’t need to wander very far because there were so many paintable pictures right there close to the cottage.’6 McCubbin adored Mt. Macedon and it is likely that this particular blackwood grew on the hill behind ‘Fontainebleau’ as indicated by the flash of illumination upper centre which reveals the steep incline beyond. This land belonged to William McGregor’s property ‘Ard choile’ (meaning ‘height of the woods’), and McCubbin masterworks such as The pioneer, 1904 (in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria), were painted there amidst the mountain ash, manna gums and blackwood – a tree that thrives in wet forests and gullies. In the current painting, the blackwood claims its position, the twisted limbs attenuated to the space around it. In these same years, the McCubbins also lived at South Yarra amidst a second tangled garden where he painted another masterwork in 1911, The old stone crusher (the quarry), (Art Gallery of South Australia); and its companion, Rainbow over Burnley, 1910, formerly owned by Sir Keith and Dame Elisabeth Murdoch.7 In an obituary following the artist’s death in 1917, he was lauded for his ‘remarkable skill in dealing with and realising the intricacies, colour and atmosphere of the Australian bush; especially the artistic tangle of the undergrowth, and the charm of solitude and silence.’8 Sadly, the landscape of McGregor’s farm no longer exists having been virtually stripped of its larger trees, as was much of the Mt Macedon area. Bushfires have also raged and much has now been subdivided into cleared paddocks for grazing horses. 1. Clark, J., ‘A happy life’: Frederick McCubbin’s small paintings and oil sketches, National Gallery of Victoria touring exhibition, City of Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Victoria, 1991, p. 6 2. Gray, A. (ed.), McCubbin: Last impressions 1907 – 17, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2009, p. 45 3. Arthur Streeton, 1921, cited ibid., p. 102 4. ‘Art notes. Mr. Fred McCubbin’s exhibition of pictures’, The Age, Melbourne, 8 April 1911, p. 14 5. Sullivan, L., Frederick McCubbin: whispering in the wattle boughs, Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria, 2021, p. 31 6. Kathleen Mangan, cited in McKenzie, A., Frederick McCubbin 1855 – 1917: ‘The Proff’ and his art, Mannagum Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 144 7. See Important Australian and International Art, Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 28 August 2024, lot 7 8. ‘Mr F. McCubbin. A distinguished artist’, The Argus, Melbourne, 21 December 1917, p. 11 ANDREW GAYNOR
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN 1855-1917 Harvest Moon (1911) oil on canvas signed 'F. McCubbin' lower right 24.5 x 55.5 cm frame: John Thallon, Melbourne (label verso) PROVENANCE Frederick McCubbin, Melbourne Private Collection, Melbourne Private Collection, Melbourne, by descent from the above EXHIBITED Catalogue of Pictures by Fred and Louis McCubbin, Athenaeum Gallery, Melbourne, 14 August – 1 September 1912, no. 27, 25 gns LITERATURE ‘Exhibition of Paintings', The Argus, Melbourne, 14 August 1912, p. 10
MACKENZIE, Andrew. Frederick McCUBBIN 1855-1917 - 'The Proff' & His Art, Limited Signed Collector's Edition, includes McCubbin Family Tree poster, signed by author to title page, cloth bound hard cover with dust jacket, published by Magnum Press, 1990
Frederick McCubbin (1855-1917) View from Mount Macedon, 1907 signed and dated lower left: 'F. McCubbin / 1907' oil on board 35.5 x 25.0cm (14 x 9 13/16in).
Frederick McCubbin (1855 - 1917) Portrait of the artist’s son John [Sydney], 1903 oil on canvas 137.5 x 70.0 cm signed and dated lower right: F McCubbin / 1903 PROVENANCE Private collection Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne Sir Archibald Glenn OBE, Melbourne, acquired from the above in November 1973 Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Fred and Louis McCubbin, Athenaeum Art Gallery, Melbourne, 14 August - 1 September 1912, cat. 11 Spring Collection Recent Acquisitions, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 24 October - 7 November 1973, cat. 16 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, n.p., as 'Portrait of the Artist's son, Sidney [sic]') The Art of the Dog, Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum, Victoria, 31 March - 27 May 2007, cat. 61 Telling Lives, Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn Arts Centre, Melbourne, July 2007 We are grateful to Peter Perry, former Director of the Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum, for his assistance with this catalogue entry. ESSAY One of Australia’s most celebrated painters, Frederick McCubbin was pivotal to the development of Australian Impressionism through both his role as a founding member of the Heidelberg School and his close association with key figures of the movement, including Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder, and Louis Abrahams. Importantly, his artistic vision was also influenced by 19th century French realist painters such as Jules Bastien-Lepage and Gustave Courbet, as well as the plein air traditions and the aestheticism of James McNeill Whistler – all of which informed the stylistic development of the Heidelberg group. In 1886, McCubbin was appointed as drawing master at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School – a role which became official in 1888 with a salary of £300 per annum, and which he held until his death in 1917. Though he maintained an active painting career, teaching became a financial necessity due to the demands of supporting a large family, comprising four sons and three daughters. Notably, several of his children would inherit his creative spirit: Louis and Sheila went on to become painters, Alexander pursued publishing, and Kathleen established herself as a writer. One of the artist’s fondest models was his fifth child, John ‘Sydney’ McCubbin (1896 – 1954) – known affectionately as ‘Ginger’ and immortalised in the superb portrait on offer here. Born on 13 June 1896 in Brighton, Victoria, Sydney thus features in some of his father’s most iconic works, including Lost, 1907 (National Gallery of Victoria) in which – aged about ten years old – he is portrayed alone and vulnerable in the harsh Australian bushland. His youngest sister, Kathleen, later recalled that the work was painted early in the morning and captured the environment surrounding their family property at Mount Macedon, ‘Fontainebleu’.1 Sydney was also the model for the infant in On the wallaby track, 1896 (Art Gallery of New South Wales), and likewise appears in Boy flying a kite, 1909 (private collection) as well as A frosty morning (also known as Winter morning), 1910, held in the Ewing Collection at the University of Melbourne. Although a subject in his father’s art, Sydney ultimately pursued a quite distinct career path in the field of science and technology. According to family accounts, particularly in Kathleen’s memoir Autumn Memories: A McCubbin Family Album, Sydney was a ‘born inventor’ and following the First World War, became deeply engaged with the emerging field of wireless radio technology.2 Inspired by Marconi’s groundbreaking discoveries, Sydney immersed himself in the study of short-wave radio, captivated by its ability to transmit signals around the globe. His innovative thinking and technical expertise quickly earned him a strong reputation in this rapidly evolving field, and by the time Sydney married in 1932, his profession was listed as ‘Radio Engineer’, reflecting his serious commitment to the discipline. At the time of his death on 26 May 1954, his occupation was formally recorded as ‘Inventor’ – a fitting tribute to a man whose mind was constantly seeking new frontiers. Thus, while his father captured the spirit of the Australian landscape on canvas, Sydney helped explore the invisible landscape of wireless communication. Though less publicly celebrated than his father’s legacy as an educator and pioneer of national artistic identity, his achievements nevertheless exemplify the continuation of intellectual and creative inquiry within another generation of the McCubbin family. 1. Mackenzie, A., Frederick McCubbin 1855 – 1917 ‘The Proff’ and his art, 1st edition, Mannagum Press, Victoria, 1990, p. 134 2. Mangan, K., Autumn Memories A McCubbin Family Album, Georgian House, Melbourne, 1988, p. 139 – 140
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN 1855-1917 Richmond from the Yarra 1908 oil on canvas on composition board signed and dated 'F. McCubbin / 1908' lower left 50.8 x 76.2 cm PROVENANCE Frederick McCubbin, Melbourne Lord and Lady Northcote, Melbourne, acquired from the above in April 1908 Private Collection, Canada, by descent from the above EXHIBITED A Collection of European and Australian Landscapes by Frederick McCubbin, Guild Hall, Melbourne, 15-30 May 1908 LITERATURE ‘Social Notes', The Australasian, Melbourne, 4 April 1908, p. 46 ‘More Pictures. Mr. McCubbin's Collection. Some Interesting Landscapes', The Herald, Melbourne, 14 May 1908, p. 4
PROPERTY FROM THE FRANK & JANET SOUTH COLLECTION, VICTORIA FREDERICK McCUBBIN (1855-1917) Autumn Afternoon 1915 oil on canvas 35.0 x 50.5 cm; 44.5 x 60.0 cm (framed) signed lower left: F McCubbin inscribed on stretcher verso: Autumn Afternoon frame: original, John Thallon, Melbourne (label attached verso)
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, SYDNEY FREDERICK McCUBBIN (1855-1917) The Clearing c1910 oil on canvas on board 25.0 x 34.0 cm; 41.0 x 45.5 cm (framed) signed indistinctly lower right: F McCubbin
Frederick Mccubbin (1855 - 1917) Bush farm, c.1910 oil on wood panel 25.0 x 35.5 cm signed lower right: F. McCubbin bears inscription verso: Bush Farm / by Fred McCubbin / "Bush Farm" / by Fred McCubbin / painted around 1910 PROVENANCE Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne Private collection, Queensland, acquired from the above in 1977 EXHIBITED Winter Exhibition 1977, Recent Acquisitions, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 4 – 14 July 1977, cat. 37 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) ESSAY Frederick McCubbin only went overseas once in his life, departing May 1907 at the age of fifty-two for a relatively brief journey of four-and-a-half months. Arriving in England in early July, what he encountered in the galleries of London and then France was transformative, initiating a radical transition in his art upon his return. He was particularly inspired by close inspection of paintings by Constable and Monet, but his true hero was Turner, writing to his wife Annie that his were ‘such dreams of colour… they glow with a tender brilliancy that radiates.’1 McCubbin was already considered a master painter of the Australian bush, as seen to full effect in such masterworks as Lost, 1886 (National Gallery of Victoria); Down on his luck, 1889 (Art Gallery of Western Australia); Bush burial, 1890 (Geelong Art Gallery); and The pioneer, 1904 (National Gallery of Victoria). However, this earlier palette was earthier, full of grey-greens and tinged with hints of melancholy. After Europe, light itself became the subject and McCubbin ‘no longer found it necessary to tell narratives, or to people the landscape. Instead, he painted images radiant with colour and energy.’2 Bush farm, c.1910, is one such work filled with painterly optimism and vibrancy. The subject is most likely a shed located on one of the neighbouring properties to the McCubbin family’s two storey cottage ‘Fontainebleau’, nestled in the Macedon Ranges on the traditional lands of the Dja Dja Wurrung, Taungurung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people, which possessed a clear view to Hanging Rock (see Landscape, Mt Macedon, Deutscher and Hackett, Sydney, 7 May 2025, lot. 69). McCubbin adored Fontainebleau and spent many happy weeks there each year, often joined by students he taught at the National Gallery School who would visit during their summer vacation, pitching their tents in the bush close to the house (his wife Annie was renowned for her generous lunches). His youngest daughter Kathleen recalled her father ‘going into the bush with his battered old felt hat and his painting coat which was smeared with paint. He used to go and find a secluded spot and put down his camping stool and he would paint his subjects right there in the bush on the spot… He didn’t need to wander far because there were so many paintable subjects right there close to the cottage.’3 National Gallery of Australia curator Anne Gray notes that intimate works such as Bush farm were most likely painted for private viewing rather than exhibition, and were ‘much admired by his artist friends, family, and some discriminating collectors.’4 Bush farm is richly coloured in violet, pink, blue and sage green, and McCubbin has applied the paint vigorously with a palette knife, including the trunks of the trees to the right, though those to the left are constructed from side-dashes marked in with a brush. In size and technique, this lot is near identical to Ti tree glade, 1910 (National Gallery of Victoria) though that painting is a close-up view of dense bush, lacking the kaleidoscopic colours that so distinguish Bush farm. 1. Fred McCubbin, Letter to Annie McCubbin, 19 July 1907, cited in Gray, A. (ed.), McCubbin: last impressions 1907 – 17, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2009, pp. 17, 259 (footnote 5) 2. Gray, ibid., p. 45 3. Kathleen Mangan, cited in McKenzie, A., Frederick McCubbin 1855 – 1917: ‘The Proff’ and his art, Mannagum Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 144 4. Gray, op cit., p. 18 ANDREW GAYNOR
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) (Bush Setting, Mount Macedon) 1902 oil on canvas signed and dated lower left: F.McCubbin/ 1902 artist's name and title on gallery label verso 39.5 x 60cm PROVENANCE: Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 28 July 1998, lot 55A (as "Water Barrel") Private collection, Melbourne Kozminsky Gallery, Melbourne (as "Bush Setting, Mount Macedon") (label verso) Private collection, Western Australia EXHIBITIONS: Spring Exhibition, Kozminsky Galleries, Melbourne, 1998, cat. no. 9 (as "Bush Setting, Mount Macedon") (label verso) Spring Exhibition, Kozminsky Galleries, Melbourne, 2000 (as "Bush Setting, Mount Macedon") (label verso) OTHER NOTES: Frederick McCubbin's deep connection to Mount Macedon is evident in the number of works he produced in and around the area from the early 1900s until his death in 1917. In 1901, McCubbin purchased a cottage named 'Fontainebleau' in the Macedon Ranges, which became a retreat for the artist and his family. The name 'Fontainebleau' was influenced by the forest near Paris where the Barbizon School painters had worked and sought inspiration in the mid nineteenth century. This French school of painting was part of the larger European movement towards naturalism in art which led to the establishment of Realism and influenced the young Impressionist artists. Surrounded by dense bushland, towering gums trees and dappled sunlight, the region provided McCubbin with a new sense of tranquillity and inspiration, shifting his palette towards more atmospheric and impressionistic tones. The Macedon Ranges became an importance place to the McCubbin family and a source of great inspiration to Frederick. McCubbin's daughter Kathleen, wrote that her father's 'greatest love was the bushland at Mt Macedon. The mystique of the Australian bushland intrigued him: the sunlight glinting through the tall timbers, the secret colours in the abundant undergrowth, the call of the birds, and the whispering breeze'. (1) At Mount Macedon, McCubbin moved away from the narrative compositions of his early career and embraced a more introspective and expressive response to the landscape. These later works are characterised by loose brushwork, a softened palette, and a poetic evocation of the Australian bush. Macedon offered McCubbin not only a physical escape from the city but also a profound emotional and spiritual connection to nature; a space where he could reflect, observe, and create. Paintings from this period, often depicting the surrounding forests, ferns, and mountain air including one of his most famous works, the triptych The Pioneer 1904, mark a distinct chapter in McCubbin's oeuvre and underscore his enduring legacy as a founding figure of Australian Impressionism. (1) Mangan, K., Daisy chains, war, the jazz, Hutchison, Melbourne, 1984, p. 70
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) The Country Lane Farm House (verso) oil on board, double-sided in a custom made frame stand signed lower left: F. McCubbin 23 x 33.5cm PROVENANCE: Mrs Alexander, student of the Artist Thence by descent Christies, Melbourne, 8 May 2001, lot 134 Private collection, Western Australia OTHER NOTES: Frederick McCubbin (1855-1917) was among a group of painters of the Australian scene now known as the 'Heidelberg School'. At art school they had been introduced to the landscape painter's craft by Eugene von Guerard, who was fixated with technique; although he did inspire the students to go sketching in bushland at Studley Park. 'For the first time I was awakened to the beauties to Australian landscape,' McCubbin always recalled of that afternoon. Painting together on their bush camps, from the late 1880s these artists reached high levels of achievement by combining aspects of rural life, open-air naturalism, and certain impressionist values. Where others in the 'Heidelberg School' initially excelled painting rural views and sun-drenched vistas, McCubbin gain attention with pictorial statements using a figure or two in secluded bush settings. His celebrated 'big pictures' 'Lost' (1886), 'Down on His Luck' (1889) and 'On the Wallaby Track' (1896) were dramas of human struggle in an untamed land. But these shady forest scenes exuded a strong affinity for nature, indeed, the Argus newspaper suggested each of his intimiste pictures of Victorian bush amounted to 'a little poem without words.' There was a poignant beauty to McCubbin's delicate tracery of gum leaves and twiggy branches, of gentle saplings and dry grasses. Roberts, Streeton and Conder subsequently left the colony, adopting a cosmopolitan twang when painting in Europe. However, McCubbin accepted a coveted teaching position at the National Gallery School and stayed put in Melbourne. Setting aside story-telling, he would henceforth channel his energies into consciously Australian compositions which imbibed nature with a moody veracity. McCubbin adopted a disciplined work pattern from the late 1890s. If he resided in Melbourne during the teaching week, much painting time was spent an hour's train journey north of the city at Mt Macedon, where the artist established himself in 'Fontainebleau' cottage. The spacious studio there was where his finest work was lovingly crafted. 'Bush Study, Macedon' (Lot 30) is among a series of bushland images McCubbin made of the mountain's upper slopes. With short, loosely pulled strokes and small paint dashes, it shows a section of virgin forest touched by a previous bushfire. Looking through packed timbers we see the trunk of a sturdy eucalypt rising in full sunlight, although it is screened by the scorched limbs of an adjacent dead tree, while other saplings around bear sprays of green growth. The Macedon locality offered a multitude of natural settings, McCubbin choosing varied subjects on regular rambles there. Sure enough, the artist draws the viewer's attention to a different aspect of nature with a stunted eucalypt in 'Mount Macedon' (Lot 19). It is set on a sunny day just before the onrush of spring. With a bed of bracken at its base, the scrawny tree is by a grassy walking track between the railway station and scattered houses at Macedon. Taking obvious delight in its random growth, the artist has fastidiously recorded this dense tangle of dead lichen-covered branches to the front, and verdant young boughs behind, which have flourished for untold years. Another aspect of nature is handled in 'Bush Setting, Mount Macedon' (Lot 28) where dark forest rises over the trickling beck that supplied water behind a cottage (hence the large tub). Much is carried in these works by the tasty brushwork, indeed, the artist wanted the viewer to lean in close and savour his paint skin. McCubbin excelled at what conservators term his 'opalescent' illumination, crafting layers of oil pigment shot through with jewel like colours. This was made by applying multiple notes of paint with small brushes he trimmed to shape, and tiny scrapers he made himself. The finished picture may be small, but up close it is selfevidently intense, each tiny note enabling the artist to work with shimmering divided colours. A break in McCubbin's oeuvre occurred in 1907 when he took several months leave to travel overseas. He sailed for Britain where he based himself in London, meeting up with old friends, and making excursions to France and Italy to see the sights and visit great museums, intently studying Old Master works. This would be his only trip abroad. 'Hammersmith Bridge' (Lot 9) and 'The Country Lane' (Lot 26) are products of that trip. Both painted on prepared panels, one is a quick oil sketched by the Thames in west London, whereas the latter is a considered-and more deftly worked-view of a profuse hedgerow encountered in the English countryside. Ever fascinated by nature, McCubbin strives to convey the persona of this unfamiliar landscape while knitting spicy strokes in his characteristic paint skin. Upon his return to Melbourne, the artist increasingly painted everyday corners of Prahran and South Yarra. 'Towards Prahran' (Lot 16) shows a long brick wall, over which we glimpse the tops of shrubs in a domestic garden, and a slender sight of the distant inner suburb. Yet again the motif serves as an avenue into visual enjoyment, observed facts giving way to a multitude of glistening dabs and buttery scuffs of pigment. 'Figures in Street, A Bit of South Yarra' (Lot 29), a contemporaneous work, is an accomplished oil sketch of pedestrian traffic. It is evident McCubbin has absorbed Monet on his overseas travels, but this is an impression in his own painterly terms, using brush and scrapers to summarise figures. In 1909 McCubbin purchased 'Carlesberg', a colonial period house at the end of Kensington Rd, South Yarra. Bordered by the Como Estate, it came with 3 1/2 acres of informal garden which directly overlooked the river. The views from, and trees within, that sloping garden supplied subjects for his very late canvases. With a deliberately diffuse paint application 'Artist's Garden, South Yarra' (Lot 13) is a lovingly crafted view of melaleucas along a fence. All is stillness and lyrical beauty in this secluded corner of the artist's garden, a slice of nature he identified with. Shown on a frosty winter morning, this is late McCubbin at his very finest. 'The Lime Tree (Yarra from Kensington Rd)' (Lot 10) is the last painting McCubbin completed. Much is packed into this composition, which offers another tree, a glimpse of the Yarra River and of suburban Richmond beyond, as well as the artist's signature paintwork. Knowing he was mortally ill, McCubbin chose to make a final work showing the mature Linden tree in his garden when it was covered in new spring leaves on a warm day-a symbol of nature's regeneration. Dr Christopher Heathcote Christopher Heathcote (PhD) is an author of several books, art critic, and authority on Australian art. In a chequered career he has been senior art critic for The Age, associate editor of Art Monthly Australia, an academic at La Trobe and Melbourne Universities then the Victorian College of the Arts, a curator of exhibitions at regional galleries and Canberra's National Gallery, as well as head of the Gordon Institute's art school.
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) Towards Prahran 1907 oil on canvas signed and dated lower left: F McCubbin/ 1907 22.5 x 53cm PROVENANCE: The Collection of Mr E. S. Levinson, Adelaide 1962 Private collection, Perth Sotheby's, Sydney, 7 May 2007, lot 59 Private collection, Western Australia LITERATURE: MacDonald, J. S. et al., The Art of Frederick McCubbin, Lothian Publishing Company, Melbourne, 1916, p. 97 MacDonald, J. S. et al., The Art of Frederick McCubbin, Boolarong Publications, Brisbane, 1986, p. 97
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) The Artist's Garden, South Yarra oil on canvas signed lower left: F. McCubbin 49.5 x 59.5cm PROVENANCE: The Collection of Mr and Mrs Maurice G. Sloman, Melbourne Estate of the above Sotheby's, Melbourne, 2 May 2000, lot 87 The Collection of James and Margaret Bleasel, Melbourne Christies, The Bleasel Collection of Australian Paintings, Melbourne, 22 March 2005, lot 17 Private collection, Western Australia
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) Hammersmith Bridge 1907 oil on board signed and dated lower right: F. McCubbin/ 1907 inscribed verso: Hammersmith Bridge, London/ by Frederick McCubbin/ [sic] to England 1907 artist's name and title on gallery label verso 24 x 33.5cm PROVENANCE: Sedon Galleries, Melbourne (label verso) Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 22 November 1995, lot 102 Private collection, Melbourne Christie's, Melbourne, 27 August 2002, lot 80 Private collection, Western Australia LITERATURE: MacDonald, J. S. et al., The Art of Frederick McCubbin, Lothian Publishing Company, Melbourne, 1916, p. 97 MacDonald, J. S. et al., The Art of Frederick McCubbin, Boolarong Publications, Brisbane, 1986, p. 97 Mackenzie, A., Frederick McCubbin 1855-1917, 'The Proff' and his Art, Mannagum Press, Victoria, 1990, p. 136
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) The Lime Tree (Yarra River from Kensington Road, South Yarra) 1917 oil on canvas signed lower left: F.McCubbin artist's name and title of frame plaque artist's name, title and date on gallery labels verso 97 x 110cm PROVENANCE: Mrs McCubbin, Melbourne The Collection of Thomas C. Lothian, Melbourne Artlovers Gallery, Sydney (as "Yarra River from Top of Kensington Road") (label verso) Elder Smith Goldsbrough Mort, Adelaide 1971 Elders IXL, Adelaide 1985 Foster's Brewing, Melbourne (as "Yarra River Top of Kensington Road, South Yarra") (label verso) Sotheby's, The Foster's Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, 23 May 2005, lot 24 (as "Yarra River from Kensington Road, South Yarra") Private collection, Western Australia EXHIBITIONS: Elders IXL Collection: Masterworks of Australian Painting and French Barbizon School, Colonial, Contemporary, Continental, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2 March - 1 April 1984, cat. no. 47 Portrait of Australia 1830-1930: The Elders IXL Collection, Riddoch Art Gallery, South Australia, 25 April - 1 June 1986 The Art of Frederick McCubbin 1855-1917, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 18 December 1991 - 25 February 1992; touring to Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 16 April - 1 June; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 26 June - 9 August; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 31 August - 11 October; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 28 October - 6 December 1992, cat. no. 54 (as "Yarra River from Kensington Road South Yarra") (label verso) McCubbin: Last Impressions, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra,14 August - 1 November 2009; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 12 December 2009 - 28 March 2010; Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 24 April - 25 July 2010, cat. no. 73 (label verso) LITERATURE: Radford, R., Elders IXL Collection: Masterworks of Australian Painting and French Barbizon School, Colonial, Contemporary, Continental, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1984, p. 36, cat. no. 18 (illus.) Radford, R., Luhrs, P. et al., Portrait of Australia: Elders IXL Collection, Elders IXL Limited, Melbourne, 1986, pp. 40-41, cat. no. 27 (illus.) Mackenzie, A., Frederick McCubbin 1855-1917, 'The Proff' and his Art, Mannagum Press, Victoria, 1990, pp. 208-09, cat. no. 67 (illus.) (as "Yarra River from Kensington Road") Whitelaw, B., The Art of Frederick McCubbin, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991, pp. 128-29 (illus.), 135, cat. no. 54 (as "Yarra River from Kensington Road South Yarra") Gray, A., McCubbin Last Impressions 1907-17, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2009, pp. 153 (illus.), 161, cat. no. 73 OTHER NOTES: 'The Lime Tree' (1917) by Frederick McCubbin (1855-1917), also known as 'Yarra River from Kensington Road, South Yarra', is a moving work that marks the end of an extraordinary career. Painted from the side veranda of McCubbin's home in South Yarra, it captures not only a view of his own backyard but also the serenity and beauty of a place that was very important to him in his final years. It stands as both an artistic and deeply personal homage to the property and its surroundings, rendered with the sensitivity and maturity that characterised his late style. Its importance is recognised by its inclusion in the significant travelling exhibition McCubbin: Last Impressions, which was represented at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Art Gallery of Western Australia and Victoria Bendigo Art Gallery between 2009 and 2010. McCubbin moved to South Yarra in 1907, shortly after returning from a brief trip to Europe. One can imagine the tranquillity the property offered, a striking contrast to the noise and chaos of European cities. The relocation marked the beginning of his final chapter. "The McCubbin family moved to 'Carlesberg' at 42 Kensington Road, South Yarra in 1907, shortly after McCubbin's return from overseas. It was one of the earliest houses in Melbourne, and consisted of approximately 10 rooms and a verandah. By the time the McCubbins lived there, the property had been reduced to approximately three acres and ran from Kensington Road down to the Yarra." (1) Immediately McCubbin felt a deep affinity to the place and the garden became an important subject for his paintings. As McCubbin wrote to his close friend Tom Roberts in 1907: "This is the loveliest place I have ever lived in. A charming old colonial house perched right over the Yarra with three acres of garden and trees... The winding stream, gums, osiers and wattle; interspersed. The night effects; sunrise, moonrise, we can see every way." (2) Part of these surroundings is the majestic The Lime Tree McCubbin painted and this work is widely considered to be the last work by the artist to be completed. The work depicts the very view he cherished in life. His daughter Kathleen recalls her memories surrounding its creation: "I always remember the name of this work as The Lime Tree and it really has a lot of sentimental value for me because it was painted from the side verandah of our house in South Yarra, overlooking the quarry...This particular painting is also of very great sentimental value for me because it was the last painting my father ever painted and it was not long after its completion that he died. I remember coming home from school... I would see my father sitting on the verandah in his dressing-gown and black velvet beret... and he would be painting this picture of The Lime Tree. He was in really poor health at the time, but he persisted, and he kept on painting until it was finished." (3) The painting is not only deeply sentimental, but it also reveals the maturity of McCubbin's technique. By this stage, his style had become increasingly loose, expressive, and rich in atmosphere. It is a canvas that captures the spirit of nature as much as the artist's love for the garden's beauty. 'The Lime Tree' is not just a final painting; it is a final vision. It stands for the poetic sensibility that defined McCubbin's approach to the Australian landscape a painter at peace with his environment. Expressing in luminous colour and form the deep contentment he had found in his house above the Yarra. "McCubbin's art was most remarkable during his final years…His daring, his experimental painterliness, and his ability to capture the Australian landscape produced some incredible work." (4) Wiebke Brix Head of Art (1) Elena Taylor, https://digital.nga.gov.au/archive/exhibition/mccubbin (2) McCubbin to Roberts, December 1907, Letters to Tom Roberts, vol. II, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (3) Gray, A., McCubbin Last Impressions 1907-17, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2009, p. 153 (4) Gray A. cited in Perkin C., 'Such Dreams of Colour', Weekend Australian, 8 - 9 August 2009, p.4
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) Figures in a Street - A Bit of South Yarra c.1910 oil on canvas signed lower left: F.McCubbin title inscribed verso: Figures in [sic]/ a bit of South Yarra 24 x 33cm PROVENANCE: Private collection, Melbourne Christies, Melbourne, 1 May 2000, lot 112 Kozminsky Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Western Australia EXHIBITIONS: Winter Exhibition, Kozminsky Gallery, Melbourne, 2000, cat. no. 16
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) Mount Macedon c.1910 oil on canvas signed lower right: F. McCubbin 50 x 75cm PROVENANCE: Sotheby's, Melbourne, 22 November 1999, lot 67 Private collection, Melbourne Christies, Melbourne, 6 May 2003, lot 93 Private collection, Western Australia OTHER NOTES: This painting is believed to depict the garden at the McCubbin family house in Mount Macedon named 'Fontainebleau'. This property contained an old neglected orchard that was used by McCubbin's students from the National Gallery as a summer camp.
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) (Bush Study, Macedon) oil on board signed lower left: F.McCubbin 35 x 25.5cm PROVENANCE: (possibly) The Sedon Galleries, Melbourne (as "Bush Study") Private collection Christies, Melbourne, 27 November 2000, lot 105 Private collection, Western Australia EXHIBITIONS: (possibly) Exhibition of Oils by the Late Frederick McCubbin, The Sedon Galleries, Melbourne, 9 September 1941, cat. no. 21 (as "Bush Study")
FREDERICK McCUBBIN (1855 - 1917) LANDSCAPE (MOUNT MACEDON) oil on canvas on plywood 25.0 x 35.5 cm signed lower right: F McCubbin PROVENANCE Private collection, Melbourne ESSAY In September 1901, Frederick McCubbin and his wife Annie purchased Fontainebleau, a two-storey gabled cottage in Glover Road on the slopes of Mount Macedon. The family maintained a residence in the city but spent a large part of their time at this country retreat located on the traditional lands of the Dja Dja Wurrung, Taungurung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples. According to McCubbin’s daughter Kathleen, her father’s ‘greatest love was the bushland at Mt Macedon. The mystique of the Australian bushland intrigued him: the sunlight glinting through the tall timbers, the secret colours in the abundant undergrowth, the call of the birds, and the whispering breeze… He loved them all.’1 Landscape (Mount Macedon) was painted on the hill behind Fontainebleau and shows the rise of the former volcano Hanging Rock (Ngannelong) to the right, a view similar to that seen from the top-floor bedrooms of the cottage. To the left is a glimpse of one of Fontainebleau’s two chimneys and in between are the plains dotted with dead trees, likely strip bark as the land was being cleared for sheep and cattle. From the late 1880s, McCubbin and his colleagues Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts were acclaimed for their new interpretation of the Australian bush, with McCubbin specialising in large narrative paintings depicting colonial settlers, such as The bush burial, 1890 (Geelong Art Gallery) and the iconic Down on his luck, 1889 (Art Gallery of Western Australia). At Mount Macedon, he completed the final – and largest – of these, the monumental triptych The pioneer, 1904 (National Gallery of Victoria), the second panel of which shows a small cottage located on William McGregor’s property behind Fontainebleau called ‘Ard choile’ meaning ‘height of the woods’. Given the raised aspect, it is plausible that Landscape (Mount Macedon) was painted near this cottage, although this particular view is no longer attainable due to tree growth. Following The pioneer, McCubbin wrote to Streeton that ‘I am afraid I must paint smaller pictures for the future (on little stretchers eight by ten, I laid him and his brethren)’2, and in a letter to Tom Roberts the following year, he further notes that he has again returned from ‘the Mount’ with a series of small studies.3 In May 1907, McCubbin travelled to Europe for three months and spent much of his time there studying the work of significant painters including J.M.W. Turner and Claude Monet, whose techniques he then sought to absorb into his own work. Although undated, it is possible that Landscape (Mount Macedon) was painted shortly after his return, with the distinctive flickering edging of the trees echoing that seen in other contemporaneous works such as Winter sunlight, 1908 (Art Gallery of South Australia). Regardless of date, this is a charming and serene view of a landscape undergoing pastoral change, rich with ‘the soft tender violet gold grey of the gums’4 that McCubbin loved so well. 1. Mangan, K., Daisy chains, war, the jazz, Hutchison, Melbourne, 1984, p. 70 2. Frederick McCubbin, letter to Arthur Streeton, 4 September 1904, cited in McKenzie, A., Frederick McCubbin 1855 – 1917: ‘The Proff’ and his art, Mannagum Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 236. McCubbin repeated the line ‘on little stretchers eight by ten, I laid him and his brethren’ in a letter to Tom Roberts 7 November 1904 (see p. 237) but the source of this quote is unknown. 3. Frederick McCubbin, letter to Tom Roberts, 25 August 1905, cited in McKenzie, ibid., p. 240 4. Frederick McCubbin, letter to Tom Roberts, November 1903, cited in Whitelaw, B., The art of Frederick McCubbin, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991, p. 6 ANDREW GAYNOR
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) Thames and St Paul's Cathedral 1908 oil on wood panel signed lower right: F McCubbin/ 1908 signed and dated verso 24 x 34cm PROVENANCE: Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 6 November 1974, lot 374 Private collection, Sydney The Estate of Carol Lynette Crooks, Sydney OTHER NOTES: In late May 1907, Frederick McCubbin boarded the Prinz Heinrich and set sail for London. At age 52 this was the first time he had left Australia and it was a trip he had long dreamed of but circumstances had prevented. In correspondence with his friend Tom Roberts, affectionately known as Smike, in 1906 he wrote of his fears that he would never make it to Europe. (1) However, the following year he was granted a six month leave of absence from his position as Drawing Master at the National Gallery in Melbourne and an exhibition and sale of his work was held to raise funds for the voyage. This European visit became pivotal to McCubbin's career, it was in London where he first saw the works of J. M. W. Turner in person, in Paris where he acquainted himself further with the paintings of the French Impressionists and at the Royal Academy in London where he met the British artist and Professor of Painting George Clausen (1852-1944). These experiences, amongst others, were to have a profound effect on McCubbin's artistic practice. He returned to Australia in late November exhausted but with a renewed vision. He set out to find new painting grounds, experimented with various painterly techniques, freed himself of the constraints of literal depictions of nature and opened his canvas to the possibilities of light and colour. McCubbin had been aware of the work of English Romantic painter J. M. W. Turner since his student days, however, poor-quality reproductions in black and white proved no substitute for the real thing. Upon viewing Turner's paintings in person at the Tate Gallery he wrote in a letter to his wife: I went yesterday…to the Tate Gallery… where the lately found Turners are exhibited… they are mostly unfinished but they are divine - such dreams of colour a dozen of them are like pearls - no theatrical effect but mist and cloud and sea and land drenched in light - no other master like him. They glow with a tender brilliancy that radiates from these canvases - how he loved the dazzling brilliancy of morning or evening - these gems with their opal colour - you feel how he gloried in these tender visions of light and art. (2) The effect and influence of Turner's painting became immediately visible in the works McCubbin completed during his travels and thereafter. Whilst overseas McCubbin painted numerous small panels and in London he was particularly attracted to the River Thames and the wharf areas between London Bridge and Limehouse. The choice of subject matter alone might draw a reference to the great English painter, however, the stylistic choices in composition, light and atmosphere make it unmistakeable. Thames and St Paul's Cathedral 1908, Lot 10, is one of a number of paintings McCubbin produced depicting the pool of London, that reach of the River Thames thronged with shipping. Other works of this scene include The Pool of London (Barges, Pool of London) 1907, Private Collection, and The Pool of London 1907, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. In each of these depictions the distant hazy sky carries an opalescent shimmer which sweeps over almost half the composition. In Thames and St Paul's Cathedral the skyline is punctuated with the dome of St Paul's which looms high over the busy city below. McCubbin captures the muted blues, reds, purples and ochres of smoggy industrial London. Painted from the south side of the river at a low vantage point, the sliver of water shows brief glimpses of the sky's reflection. The foreground depicts barges dotted along the banks of the river with one in motion moving toward the left edge of the composition, soon to be out of sight. This series of paintings paid homage to Turner not only through the gentle shimmer of light and the choice of subject matter, but also in composition. The similarity to Turner's Venetian paintings is striking, particularly in the celebration of the waterways and the architecture of the city. Whilst McCubbin's time in Britain convinced him further of Turner's greatness, he was not the only artist McCubbin admired. He respected the work of Turner's contemporary, John Constable, and Camille Corot was also an important influence. Following a trip to Paris with Emanual Philips Fox he commented on the Impressionists noting that the works of Manet, Monet and Sisley were "very fine". (3) At the Royal Academy he no doubt discussed with George Clausen their equally changing attitudes towards a freer style of painting that favoured colour over tone. In his lectures Clausen had written "the tendency, with increased knowledge, is to broaden and to lighten. Rembrandt himself shows a difference between his earlier and later work. It is the growing perception of the beauty of light." (4) Clausen appeared to anticipate McCubbin's reaction to Turner when he expanded upon this theory by discussing the older painters who gained colour at the expense of light by suggesting sunlight via means of dark shadow. He mentions that Turner was the first to discard these methods and to attempt to gain a higher scale of colour which was truer to nature by incorporating colour in the shadows as well as the light. (5) These sentiments are certainly evident in McCubbin's changed approach to painting upon his return to Australia in late 1907. This later phase of McCubbin's output was distinct through his new choices of subject matter and his experimental technique. Instead of the narrative bush scenes he had become so well recognised for he chose to paint the places he knew best and where he felt a deep personal attachment. He returned time and time again to the landscape around his homes in South Yarra and Mount Macedon, as well as the industrial docks of Williamstown and the urban inner city. His concern shifted away from literal representations of nature to conveying the varying effects of light and he developed an experimental painting technique which allowed him more freedom to explore atmospheric effects. These later paintings often consisted of smaller landscapes painted primarily using a palette knife on a white primed canvas or on small artists boards. He animated the surface of his pictures with scraped colour which he often let dry before abrading the surface to unevenly reveal the under-colour and white ground. During this period one of his favourite subjects was the old stone crusher at Burnley quarries in Richmond. This site could be viewed from the bank above the Yarra River at the bottom of the McCubbin property in South Yarra. (6) He made a number of sketches and paintings of this site including Towards Melbourne (The Old Stone Crusher) c.1912, Lot 11, The Old Stone Crusher (The quarry) 1911, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, The Stone Crusher c.1912, Castlemaine Art Museum, Victoria, and Autumn (Stone Crusher, Richmond Quarry) 1908, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. In Towards Melbourne (The Old Stone Crusher) c.1912 the sky still assumes a large portion of the canvas with a freer and more textural application of paint. The low vantage point from across the river gives the stone crusher a sense of grandeur as it lifts up into the sky breaking the city skyline, not dissimilar in composition from his earlier Thames and St Paul's Cathedral 1908. The middle-ground has been brushed and abraded to reveal glimpses of the white canvas behind in synchronicity with the landscape it depicts. The water in the foreground sparkles and flickers with the effects of sunlight, conveying movement and reflection. Unlike works from his earlier periods there is nothing grey or melancholic about it, the palette combines a myriad of hues blending into the landscape - pinks, purples, blues, greens and yellows create a radiant energy. In the first half of his career McCubbin's practice had a more academic approach, he typically used small, meticulously applied brushstrokes to create realistic depictions of events entwined with national identity on large scale canvas'. These works presented a way of life unique to Australia and captured the spirit of the bush, his view was of the new settler and someone not yet at home in Australia. (7) Following McCubbin's travels abroad and by the time he begins the later phase of his career his approach and methodology to painting has evolved into a matured style, content with both his surroundings in the Australian landscape and himself as a painter. With a focus on atmospheric painting and a freedom of expression, McCubbin's evocative later works express his delight and comfort within the Australian landscape. (8) This transition in McCubbin's career in many ways was aligned with the evolution of the nation, his later paintings tell us that Australia is no longer a place of pioneers down on their luck, it has modern and established cities where society prospers. (9) Madeleine Norton Head of Decorative Arts & Art, Sydney (1) Galbally, Ann, Frederick McCubbin (Melbourne: Hutchinson Group, 1981), p. 121 (2) Whitelaw, B, The Art of Frederick McCubbin (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1991), p. 82 (3) Whitelaw, B, The Art of Frederick McCubbin (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1991), p. 17 (4) Galbally, Ann, Frederick McCubbin (Melbourne: Hutchinson Group, 1981), p. 133 (5) Ibid. (6) Whitelaw, B, The Art of Frederick McCubbin (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1991), p. 100 (7) Gray, A, McCubbin: Last Impressions 1907-17 (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2009) p. 43. (8) Ibid., p. 45. (9) Ibid., p. 46.
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN 1855-1917 A Bush Study, Macedon 1909 oil on canvas on board signed and dated [indistinctly] ‘F. McCubbin / 1909' lower left 25.5 x 35.5 cm frame: Charles Hewitt, Sydney (stamped verso) PROVENANCE Frederick McCubbin, Melbourne Private Collection, Melbourne Fine Australian Paintings, Sotheby's Australia, Melbourne, 19 April 1993, lot 215, ‘Girl in the Woods', illustrated Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above Private Collection, Sydney
PROPERTY FORMERLY FROM THE COLLECTION OF SYDNEY McCUBBIN, MELBOURNE FREDERICK McCUBBIN (1855-1917) Como c1909 oil on canvas 25.5 x 45.5 cm; 29.0 x 49.5 cm (framed) signed lower left: F McCubbin
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) Towards Melbourne (The Old Stone Crusher) c.1912 oil on paper laid on board signed lower right: F McCubbin 23.5 x 33.5cm PROVENANCE: Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 5 November 1980, lot 515 Private collection, Sydney The Estate of Carol Lynette Crooks, Sydney OTHER NOTES: RELATED WORKS: Frederick McCubbin, The Old Stone Crusher (The Quarry) 1911, oil on canvas, 76 x 91.5cm, The Collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide Frederick McCubbin, The Stone Crusher c.1912, oil on canvas on board, 25.5 x 35.5cm, The Collection of the Castlemaine Art Gallery & Historical Museum, Victoria Frederick McCubbin, Stone Crusher, Richmond Quarry, 1908, oil on canvas on plywood, 50.5 x 76cm, The Collection of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) Thames and St Paul's Cathedral 1908 oil on wood panel signed lower right: F McCubbin/ 1908 signed and dated verso 24 x 34cm PROVENANCE: Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 6 November 1974, lot 374 Private collection, Sydney The Estate of Carol Lynette Crooks, Sydney OTHER NOTES: In late May 1907, Frederick McCubbin boarded the Prinz Heinrich and set sail for London. At age 52 this was the first time he had left Australia and it was a trip he had long dreamed of but circumstances had prevented. In correspondence with his friend Tom Roberts, affectionately known as Smike, in 1906 he wrote of his fears that he would never make it to Europe. (1) However, the following year he was granted a six month leave of absence from his position as Drawing Master at the National Gallery in Melbourne and an exhibition and sale of his work was held to raise funds for the voyage. This European visit became pivotal to McCubbin's career, it was in London where he first saw the works of J. M. W. Turner in person, in Paris where he acquainted himself further with the paintings of the French Impressionists and at the Royal Academy in London where he met the British artist and Professor of Painting George Clausen (1852-1944). These experiences, amongst others, were to have a profound effect on McCubbin's artistic practice. He returned to Australia in late November exhausted but with a renewed vision. He set out to find new painting grounds, experimented with various painterly techniques, freed himself of the constraints of literal depictions of nature and opened his canvas to the possibilities of light and colour. McCubbin had been aware of the work of English Romantic painter J. M. W. Turner since his student days, however, poor-quality reproductions in black and white proved no substitute for the real thing. Upon viewing Turner's paintings in person at the Tate Gallery he wrote in a letter to his wife: I went yesterday…to the Tate Gallery… where the lately found Turners are exhibited… they are mostly unfinished but they are divine - such dreams of colour a dozen of them are like pearls - no theatrical effect but mist and cloud and sea and land drenched in light - no other master like him. They glow with a tender brilliancy that radiates from these canvases - how he loved the dazzling brilliancy of morning or evening - these gems with their opal colour - you feel how he gloried in these tender visions of light and art. (2) The effect and influence of Turner's painting became immediately visible in the works McCubbin completed during his travels and thereafter. Whilst overseas McCubbin painted numerous small panels and in London he was particularly attracted to the River Thames and the wharf areas between London Bridge and Limehouse. The choice of subject matter alone might draw a reference to the great English painter, however, the stylistic choices in composition, light and atmosphere make it unmistakeable. Thames and St Paul's Cathedral 1908, Lot 10, is one of a number of paintings McCubbin produced depicting the pool of London, that reach of the River Thames thronged with shipping. Other works of this scene include The Pool of London (Barges, Pool of London) 1907, Private Collection, and The Pool of London 1907, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. In each of these depictions the distant hazy sky carries an opalescent shimmer which sweeps over almost half the composition. In Thames and St Paul's Cathedral the skyline is punctuated with the dome of St Paul's which looms high over the busy city below. McCubbin captures the muted blues, reds, purples and ochres of smoggy industrial London. Painted from the south side of the river at a low vantage point, the sliver of water shows brief glimpses of the sky's reflection. The foreground depicts barges dotted along the banks of the river with one in motion moving toward the left edge of the composition, soon to be out of sight. This series of paintings paid homage to Turner not only through the gentle shimmer of light and the choice of subject matter, but also in composition. The similarity to Turner's Venetian paintings is striking, particularly in the celebration of the waterways and the architecture of the city. Whilst McCubbin's time in Britain convinced him further of Turner's greatness, he was not the only artist McCubbin admired. He respected the work of Turner's contemporary, John Constable, and Camille Corot was also an important influence. Following a trip to Paris with Emanual Philips Fox he commented on the Impressionists noting that the works of Manet, Monet and Sisley were "very fine". (3) At the Royal Academy he no doubt discussed with George Clausen their equally changing attitudes towards a freer style of painting that favoured colour over tone. In his lectures Clausen had written "the tendency, with increased knowledge, is to broaden and to lighten. Rembrandt himself shows a difference between his earlier and later work. It is the growing perception of the beauty of light." (4) Clausen appeared to anticipate McCubbin's reaction to Turner when he expanded upon this theory by discussing the older painters who gained colour at the expense of light by suggesting sunlight via means of dark shadow. He mentions that Turner was the first to discard these methods and to attempt to gain a higher scale of colour which was truer to nature by incorporating colour in the shadows as well as the light. (5) These sentiments are certainly evident in McCubbin's changed approach to painting upon his return to Australia in late 1907. This later phase of McCubbin's output was distinct through his new choices of subject matter and his experimental technique. Instead of the narrative bush scenes he had become so well recognised for he chose to paint the places he knew best and where he felt a deep personal attachment. He returned time and time again to the landscape around his homes in South Yarra and Mount Macedon, as well as the industrial docks of Williamstown and the urban inner city. His concern shifted away from literal representations of nature to conveying the varying effects of light and he developed an experimental painting technique which allowed him more freedom to explore atmospheric effects. These later paintings often consisted of smaller landscapes painted primarily using a palette knife on a white primed canvas or on small artists boards. He animated the surface of his pictures with scraped colour which he often let dry before abrading the surface to unevenly reveal the under-colour and white ground. During this period one of his favourite subjects was the old stone crusher at Burnley quarries in Richmond. This site could be viewed from the bank above the Yarra River at the bottom of the McCubbin property in South Yarra. (6) He made a number of sketches and paintings of this site including Towards Melbourne (The Old Stone Crusher) c.1912, Lot 11, The Old Stone Crusher (The quarry) 1911, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, The Stone Crusher c.1912, Castlemaine Art Museum, Victoria, and Autumn (Stone Crusher, Richmond Quarry) 1908, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. In Towards Melbourne (The Old Stone Crusher) c.1912 the sky still assumes a large portion of the canvas with a freer and more textural application of paint. The low vantage point from across the river gives the stone crusher a sense of grandeur as it lifts up into the sky breaking the city skyline, not dissimilar in composition from his earlier Thames and St Paul's Cathedral 1908. The middle-ground has been brushed and abraded to reveal glimpses of the white canvas behind in synchronicity with the landscape it depicts. The water in the foreground sparkles and flickers with the effects of sunlight, conveying movement and reflection. Unlike works from his earlier periods there is nothing grey or melancholic about it, the palette combines a myriad of hues blending into the landscape - pinks, purples, blues, greens and yellows create a radiant energy. In the first half of his career McCubbin's practice had a more academic approach, he typically used small, meticulously applied brushstrokes to create realistic depictions of events entwined with national identity on large scale canvas'. These works presented a way of life unique to Australia and captured the spirit of the bush, his view was of the new settler and someone not yet at home in Australia. (7) Following McCubbin's travels abroad and by the time he begins the later phase of his career his approach and methodology to painting has evolved into a matured style, content with both his surroundings in the Australian landscape and himself as a painter. With a focus on atmospheric painting and a freedom of expression, McCubbin's evocative later works express his delight and comfort within the Australian landscape. (8) This transition in McCubbin's career in many ways was aligned with the evolution of the nation, his later paintings tell us that Australia is no longer a place of pioneers down on their luck, it has modern and established cities where society prospers. (9) Madeleine Norton Head of Decorative Arts & Art, Sydney (1) Galbally, Ann, Frederick McCubbin (Melbourne: Hutchinson Group, 1981), p. 121 (2) Whitelaw, B, The Art of Frederick McCubbin (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1991), p. 82 (3) Whitelaw, B, The Art of Frederick McCubbin (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1991), p. 17 (4) Galbally, Ann, Frederick McCubbin (Melbourne: Hutchinson Group, 1981), p. 133 (5) Ibid. (6) Whitelaw, B, The Art of Frederick McCubbin (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1991), p. 100 (7) Gray, A, McCubbin: Last Impressions 1907-17 (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2009) p. 43. (8) Ibid., p. 45. (9) Ibid., p. 46.
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855 - 1917) RAINBOW OVER BURNLEY, 1910 oil on wood panel 25.0 x 35.5 cm bears inscription verso: Burnley Quarry / by F McCubbin / 1910 letter of authenticity attached verso, signed by Louis McCubbin, dated 29 June 1949 PROVENANCE Sedon Galleries, Melbourne Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, Cruden Farm, Victoria, acquired in 1949 McClelland Collection, McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery, Langwarrin, gifted from the above in 1989 (label attached verso) EXHIBITED Exhibition of paintings by the late Fred McCubbin, Sedon Galleries, Melbourne, 2 – 12 August 1949, cat. 21 (as ,The Rainbow,) ‘A happy life’: Frederick McCubbin’s small paintings and oil sketches, National Gallery of Victoria touring exhibition; City of Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Victoria, 30 November 1991 –12 January 1992, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 1 February – 2 March 1992, City of Hamilton Art Gallery, Victoria, 24 March – 21 April 1992, Mornington Peninsula Arts Centre, Victoria, 8 May – 5 July 1992, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, 23 July – 13 September 1992, and Latrobe Valley Arts Centre, Victoria, 2 – 31 October 1992, cat. 29 (label attached verso) McCubbin: Last Impressions 1907 – 17, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 14 August – 1 November 2009; and touring to Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 12 December 2009 – 28 March 2010, and Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 24 April – 25 July 2010, cat. 31 (label attached verso, as ,The rainbow (Rainbow over Burnley),) LITERATURE Clark, J., ‘A happy life’: Frederick McCubbin’s small paintings and oil sketches, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991, cat. 29, pp. 11 (illus.), 22 Gray, A., McCubbin: Last Impressions 1907 – 17, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2009, cat. 31, pp. 85, 100 (illus. as ,The rainbow (Rainbow over Burnley),) RELATED WORK Autumn (Stone crusher, Richmond Quarry), 1908, oil on canvas on plywood, 50.5 x 76.0 cm, in the collection of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart The old stone crusher (The quarry), 1911, oil on canvas, 76.0 x 91.5 cm, in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide The stone crusher, c.1912, oil on canvas on board, 25.5 x 35.5 cm, in the collection of the Castlemaine Art Museum, Victoria ESSAY For six decades, the bluestone quarries of Richmond provided basalt for building and road construction throughout Melbourne. Located south of Coppin Street in the area known locally as Cremorne, they operated until extensive flooding in 1918 sealed their fate and the resultant lakes were opened to the river, leaving Herring Island their wake. The stone crusher was a centrepiece of the operations, a noisy, smoky machine to most, but to Frederick McCubbin, a wonderful subject which he would paint on a number of occasions from the family home ‘Carlesberg’ situated directly across the Yarra, a ‘charming old colonial house of stone, cool on the hottest days, perched right over the Yarra with three acres of garden and trees.’1 His daughter Kathleen Mangan would later recall how McCubbin ‘loved that old stone crusher, and it was so accessible to painting – looking across from our hill.’2 Rainbow over Burnley, 1910 is a striking study of the crusher, unusual in the fact that McCubbin has now travelled across the river and inspects the machine up close. The McCubbins had lived at Carlesberg since 1909, two years after the artist’s first and only journey overseas. McCubbin stayed for three months, predominantly in England with shorter visits to France and Italy. He spent much of that time in galleries, intensely studying impressive works by his heroes, particularly JMW Turner, whose paintings had a profound effect on him. Even so, McCubbin wrote in a letter to his colleague Tom Roberts that ‘I actually thought I was somebody over in England, right up against Rembrandt, Turner, Velasquez, Gainsborough, Reynolds. I felt quite in good company.’3 In Rainbow over Burnley Monet is in there too, McCubbin having seen his work in Paris. Further, he stated emphatically that he now did not want to ‘‘arrest Nature’, but rather to emulate the spirit of great landscape masters of the past… whom he felt had ‘caught it alive.’’4 On his return, McCubbin’s painting technique underwent a radical change of direction. In this new approach, as vividly expressed in Rainbow over Burnley, McCubbin built up a rich surface of overlapping paint layers using palette knives and brushes. In some places, he wiped the paint back to reveal the texture of the canvas or wood; in others he left the paint thick or scratched into it using the handle of his paintbrush. ‘By this method the underneath colours would show through the over-paintings, and the effect of transparency and broken colour was accentuated; advantage could also be taken of ‘accident’… [pictures were] painted at concert pitch for themselves.’5 Nature was McCubbin’s supreme entity, but he was fascinated too by humanity’s impact upon it. In Rainbow over Burnley, the stone crusher stands proudly, suddenly graced by the presence of a rainbow, ‘alluding to notions of both the metaphysical and physical.’6 With this painting, as well as related works The old stone crusher (The quarry), 1911 (Art Gallery of South Australia) and The stone crusher, c.1912 (Castlemaine Art Gallery), he gives ‘industry a central place, he transformed and ennobled the building.’7 In 1942, Sir Keith Murdoch opened a memorial exhibition of McCubbin’s paintings, and seven years later, his wife Dame Elisabeth purchased Rainbow over Burnley, later gifting it to the McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery.8 1. Frederick McCubbin, Letter to Tom Roberts, late December 1907, cited in McKenzie, A., Frederick McCubbin 1855 – 1917: ‘The Proff’ and his art, Mannagum Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 269 2. McKenzie, ibid., p. 170 3. Frederick McCubbin, Letter to Tom Roberts, 1907, op. cit. 4. Frederick McCubbin, correspondence, 27 January 1909, cited in Clark, J., ‘A happy life’: Frederick McCubbin’s small paintings and oil sketches, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991, p. 6 5. McCubbin, L., Bulletin of the National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, vol. V, no.1, July 1943 6. Gray, A. (ed.), McCubbin: Last Impressions 1907 – 17, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2009, p. 100 7. ibid., p. 134 8. See ibid., p. 100 ANDREW GAYNOR
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN 1855-1917 Kathleen McCubbin (1908) oil on canvas signed ‘F McCubbin' lower left 50.5 x 40 cm (oval) PROVENANCE Frederick McCubbin, Melbourne The McCubbin Family, Melbourne, by descent from the above Dr I.F. Phipps and Mrs Alice Phipps, Melbourne, by 1969 Private Collection, Melbourne Private Collection, Melbourne, by descent from the above in 1992 Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 2004 Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 2011 EXHIBITED Nine Portraits by Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts, Joshua McClelland Print Room, Melbourne, 20-30 October 1964, no. 1 Collectors' Collections, Melbourne Church of England Grammar School, Melbourne, 9-17 August 1969, no. 96, ‘Portrait of Kath McCubbin' LITERATURE Kathleen Mangan, Daisy Chains, War, then Jazz, Hutchinson Publishing Group (Australia) Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 1984, cover (illustrated), opp. p. 112 (illustrated) Andrew Mackenzie, Frederick McCubbin 1855-1917: ‘The Proff' and His Art, Mannagum Press, Melbourne, 1990, plate 19, pp. 138, 139 (illustrated)
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855 - 1917) TOWARDS RICHMOND FROM KENSINGTON ROAD, SOUTH YARRA, c.1910 oil on canvas board 25.0 x 35.5 cm signed lower right: F McCubbin bears inscription verso: no. 7 J. Q. McCUBBIN PROVENANCE The artist, Melbourne Thence by descent John McCubbin, Melbourne, the artist's grandson Thence by descent Mrs Nanette McCubbin, Melbourne Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 27 – 28 August 2008, lot 25A Private collection, Melbourne
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855 - 1917) STUDY FOR WILLIAMSTOWN LANDSCAPE, 1909 oil on canvas on board 25.5 x 35.5 cm signed lower right: F M McCubbin PROVENANCE Esther Paterson, Melbourne, 1962 Christie's, Melbourne, 26 November 1996, lot 106 Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 20 April 1998, lot 35 Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 13 September 2006, lot 40 Private collection, Adelaide EXHIBITED Archives Exhibition, Victorian Artists' Society, Melbourne, November 1962, cat. 22 The Artists' Journey: Discovering the Victorian Coastline 1840 – 1910, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria, 14 December 2003 – 22 February 2004 (label attached verso) LITERATURE MacDonald, J., The Art of Frederick McCubbin, The Lothian Book Publishing Co. Pty Ltd., Melbourne, 1916, p. 78 Thomas, D. E. L., 'Frederick McCubbin's Winter Sunlight', Bulletin of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1978, vol. 36, pp. 39 - 40 RELATED WORK Williamstown Landscape, 1909, oil on canvas, 61.0 x 91.5 cm, formerly in the collection of the National Australia Bank, sold Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 22 February 2022, lot 17 ESSAY We are grateful to Brenda Martin Thomas, wife of the late David Thomas AM, for kindly allowing us to reproduce David's writing in this catalogue entry. Ships and docks run throughout Frederick McCubbin’s art, one of his earliest oil paintings being View of the New Dock, 1880. This is not surprising for McCubbin grew up in King Street, not far from the Melbourne docks, and the docklands were part of his teenage bread round when working for his father. Moreover, ships from faraway places would have exercised a strong appeal for a young man of McCubbin’s romantic inclination. Two years later, he painted Falls Bridge, Melbourne, 1882 (National Gallery of Victoria), the numerous masts of tall ships spread enticingly across the background. This was followed by such major paintings as The City’s Toil, 1887 (also known as Smith’s Wharf, Yarra Yarra) now in Wesfarmers collection, and Melbourne, 1888 (National Gallery of Victoria), showing the city from the busy docks. Even during his trip to England in 1907 his attention was drawn to shipping and harbours, at Naples, Genoa, and especially on the Thames. His single, most important painting from this trip was The Pool of London, 1907, which was accompanied by a number of smaller studies and related scenes – Thames Barges; Hammersmith Bridge; and Barges, Pool of London – all of the same dimensions as the painting on offer. In England, he also enjoyed seeing at first hand the paintings of his lifelong hero, J.M.W. Turner, whose increased influence on his work after his return is engagingly apparent in this and other paintings. The shipping slips and sheds of Williamstown on Port Phillip Bay attracted many artists, especially McCubbin after his return to Australia. In January 1909, he wrote to his old friend Tom Roberts in London: ‘I have been down at Williamstown for a few pochards [rough sketches] my dear boy, just like Venice, lovely colour. Water, sky and an old ship… the older I get, the wider my interest grows in all life, colour and charm.’1 Study for ‘Williamstown Landscape’, 1909 is one of at least three known and very similar studies for the larger painting, Williamstown Landscape, 1909 formerly in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia. Our painting appears to be the first of these studies, painted en plein air directly from the motif, the application of the paint with deft strokes of the palette knife capturing the scene with a sparkling freshness. Another important Williamstown subject, The Old Ship, Williamstown, 1915 was painted from a position on the other side of the buildings shown in this appealing study. 1. Letters to Tom Roberts, vol. II, no. 18, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. DAVID THOMAS
McCUBBIN, Frederick (1855-1917) 'Grey Day - the Old Garden, Kensington Rd, South Yarra,' c.1911-12. Signed lower right 'F McCubbin.' Title inscribed verso; also, remnants of label for The Sedon Galleries, Elizabeth Street, Melbourne. Oil on Canvas 34x49cm PROVENANCE: Ivon Murdoch (1892-1964) and Alma Murdoch (nee Anderson), 'Wantabadgery East,' N.S.W.; Stuart Murdoch, son of the above (d.1990) and Patricia Murdoch (nee McKay), 'Wantabadgery East,' then 'Springvale,' near Wagga Wagga, N.S.W.; Estate Late Patricia Osborne (Murdoch), Wagga Wagga, N.S.W. OTHER NOTES: The artist moved to 'Carlsberg' in Kensington Road, South Yarra, in 1907 soon after his return from Europe where he was influenced by the work of Corot and Monet amongst others. In a letter of that same year to Tom Roberts, he wrote: 'this is the loveliest place I have ever lived in. A charming old colonial house perched right over the Yarra with three acres of garden and trees,' Letters to Tom Roberts, Vol II, Mitchell Library, Sydney.
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) Summer Haze 1916 oil on canvas signed and dated lower right: F McCubbin / 1916 bears inscription on gallery label verso: Late Fred McCubbin / ‘Summer Haze' 46.0 x 58.5cm PROVENANCE The Sedon Galleries, Melbourne (label verso) Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne Henry Krongold, Melbourne, acquired from the above in June 1989 The Estate of Paul Krongold, Melbourne
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855 - 1917) EDGE OF THE CLEARING oil on canvas on cardboard 25.5 x 35.0 cm signed lower right: F. McCubbin bears inscription on frame verso: Edge of the Clearing F McCubbin PROVENANCE Private collection Artarmon Gallery, Sydney, September 1965 (label attached verso) Sir Leon and Lady Trout, Brisbane The Collection of Sir Leon and Lady Trout, Christies, Brisbane, 6 June 1989, lot 170 Henry Krongold, Melbourne The Estate of Paul Krongold, Melbourne EXHIBITED Master Works from the Collection of Sir Leon and Lady Trout, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 21 September – 14 December 1977, cat. 24 (label attached verso) ESSAY It is highly plausible that Edge of the Clearing is one of the studies done by Frederick McCubbin in preparation for his masterpiece The Pioneer, 1904 (National Gallery of Victoria). This monumental triptych has mesmerised audiences since its first display, a poignant tale of a pioneering family and the property they establish in the bush. At the rear of the central panel is the settlers’ cottage which bears a marked similarity to the one seen here, framed by large trees and partially obscured by saplings. The technique and setting also identifies Edge of the Clearing as being painted before 1907, when McCubbin went to Europe, radically changing his style on return. It further bears a marked similarity to the bush around the artist’s family home ‘Fontainebleau’ at Mt Macedon, north of Melbourne. McCubbin and his wife Annie purchased this property in 1901 and, as his youngest daughter Kathleen recalled, her father’s ‘greatest love was the bushland at Mt Macedon. The mystique of the Australian bushland intrigued him: the sunlight glinting through the tall timbers, the secret colours in the abundant undergrowth, the call of the birds, and the whispering breeze… He loved them all.’ 1 It was a bush landscape populated by stringybarks, bracken, wattle and manna gums, and Edge of the Clearing accurately coveys the scrubbiness and dappled light which so intrigued the artist. However, the cottage itself was more likely to be one from the adjoining property, ‘Ard Choille’ (meaning ‘height of the woods’ in Scots Gaelic), owned by William McGregor who built a number of little cottages there, with the one shown in The Pioneer having been used by the keeper of his bull farm. 2 McCubbin painted a great number of important and wonderfully atmospheric paintings around Fontainebleau, indicative of his belief that ‘(n)ature under our Australian sky seems to me like a shy, reserved person, ready to repel you; but you only have to wait and watch her varying moods, and you will find all the beauty you want.’ 3 Unfortunately the scene is now radically changed. Sold during the Depression, the property was subsequently logged for milling before bushfires cleared the rest until it became a grassed paddock for horses. 4 Ironically, recent years of neglect have seen much of Fontainebleau’s bushland return. When The Pioneer was exhibited, the critic for The Age noted that ‘one condition of success, apart from the question of the necessary technique, is that the artist remains true to the spirit of our landscape, and to the spirit in which we live our lives amid it, as Mr McCubbin has done.’ 5 Though far more modest in scale, this observation rings true for Edge of the Clearing as well, and apart from its quality, as implied through its subsequent ownership by the Trout and Krongold families, the painting bears a further distinctive feature, its original frame. This is almost certainly made by master frame-maker John Thallon, and ‘uses composition ornaments on a wooden chassis. The torus ornament is conventional imbricated laurel leaves and berries, cross-banded at the corners. The flat is sanded.’5 A very similar example can be found on John Ford Paterson’s Fernshaw, 1896 (Castlemaine Art Museum). 1. Mangan, K., Daisy Chains, War, the Jazz, Hutchison, Melbourne, 1984, p. 70 2. ibid., p. 126 3. Frederick McCubbin. Quoted in: ‘Amongst the country studios’, The Age, Melbourne, 10 February 1894, p. 14 4.See: McKenzie, A., Frederick McCubbin 1855-1917: ‘The Proff’ and his art, Mannagum Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 129 5. The Age, Melbourne, 16 August 1905, p. 6 6. Payne, J., Framing the Nineteenth Century: Picture Frames 1837- 1935, Peleus Press/National Gallery of Victoria, 2007, p. 174 ANDREW GAYNOR
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855 - 1917) SUMMER HAZE, 1916 oil on canvas 46.0 x 58.5 cm signed and dated lower right: F McCubbin / 1916 bears inscription on gallery label verso: Late Fred McCubbin / ‘Summer Haze’ PROVENANCE The Sedon Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso) Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne Henry Krongold, Melbourne, acquired from the above in June 1989 The Estate of Paul Krongold, Melbourne ESSAY Frederick McCubbin’s Summer haze, 1916, is one of the last paintings finished by the artist, alongside his striking self-portrait from the same year, now in the collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA). McCubbin was becoming increasingly unwell and his health was aggravated by severe asthma which also curtailed his mobility, so the wonderfully wild acreage of his South Yarra home became the focus for his paintings. McCubbin was already famed for his evocative depictions of Australian life such as A bush burial, 1890 (Geelong Art Gallery); The Pioneers, 1904, (National Gallery of Victoria), and Violet and gold, 1911 (National Gallery of Australia); and the latter work, like Summer haze, displays the lighter palette he employed after visiting Europe for his first and only time in 1907, where the luminous artworks of J.M.W. Turner made a profound impression. McCubbin and his wife Annie purchased a house in Mt Macedon in 1901 which they re-named ‘Fontainebleau’ and it was here that many of his larger works were painted. However, in 1905 he also rented a home in South Yarra before leaving for Europe; and on his return, McCubbin moved to nearby ‘Carlesberg’, a larger property in Kensington Road, which he retitled ‘The studio’ at outbreak of WWI due to its original Germanic name. This was a ‘charming old colonial house of stone, cool on the hottest days, perched right over the Yarra.’ 1 Family friend Bessie Colquhoun recalled that ‘Kensington Road had a rather wild old garden…(not) actually a garden, it was wild country, but it was very lovely … full of wild things, natural things, gums and all the things that grow out in the bush.’ 2 McCubbin was entranced by the property, painting many of its aspects throughout the remaining decade of his life. In Summer haze, he focuses on the lower trunks of two of the garden’s elder trees, whose edges dissolve in the crisp morning light, also seen to great effect in the larger Golden Sunlight, c.1914 (Castlemaine Art Museum and Gallery). The radiance of these paintings was achieved through a laborious process, as described by the artist’s son Louis, whereby ‘the pigment was mixed on the palette and applied with a knife... [On completion] the canvas was put in the window or out in the sun until the pigment became bone dry; it was then rubbed down with pumice-stone until the surface was smooth as glass. By this method the underneath colours would show through the over-paintings, and the effect of transparency and broken colour was accentuated.’ 3 Unfortunately, the stress of the disastrous war – which killed his brother and maimed one of his sons – exacerbated McCubbin’s ill health forcing him to take extended leave from his teaching position at the National Gallery Art School; but he continued creating as his youngest daughter Kathleen recalled: ‘(After taking) the short cut across to our place, across the paddocks… I would see my father on the verandah in his dressing-gown and black velvet beret, which he always put on when he went outside at that stage of his life… He was really in very poor health at this time, but he persisted and he kept on painting.’ 4 McCubbin’s debilitating asthma and a bout of pneumonia further weakened him and on 20 December 1917, he died from a heart attack aged sixty-two. 1. Frederick McCubbin. Letter to Tom Roberts, December 1907. Cited in: McKenzie, A., Frederick McCubbin 1855-1917: ‘The Proff’ and his art, Mannagum Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 269 2. Bessie Colquhoun. Quoted in: ibid., p. 341 3. Louis McCubbin, Bulletin of the Art Gallery of South Australia, 1943. Cited in: Whitelaw, B., The art of Frederick McCubbin, National Gallery of Victoria, 1991, p.18 4. Kathleen Mangan. Quoted in: McKenzie, A., Frederick McCubbin, ibid., p. 208 ANDREW GAYNOR
4 Volumes on Frederick McCubbin 1) Frederick McCubbin: A Consideration by Alexander Colquhoun, Alexander McCubbin Publisher, paper booklet, 7 tipped in plates, stamp to front 2 and 3) 2 copies of Frederick McCubbin Exhibition Catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria 1955, paper booklet, acknowledgment by Daryl Lindsay, prepared by Ursula Hoff, caricature by David Low at the back, WM Houston Govt Printer Melbourne 4) McCubbin: Last Impressions 1907 - 17 by Anne Gray, NGA Publishing c.2009, softcover; good condition with some foxing and marks
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855 - 1917) KENSINGTON ROAD, SOUTH YARRA, c.1908 oil on canvas on board 25.5 x 35.5 cm signed lower right: F McCubbin letter of authenticity attached verso, signed by Louis McCubbin, dated 1 March 1946 PROVENANCE Private collection Christie’s, Melbourne, 24 November 1999, lot 6 Private collection, Sydney ESSAY We are grateful to Brenda Martin Thomas, wife of the late David Thomas AM, for kindly allowing us to reproduce David's research and writing in this catalogue entry. Frederick McCubbin's move with his family to the rented property ‘Carlesberg’ in Kensington Road, South Yarra at the end of 1907 introduced some of the happiest and richest years in his art. Many of his finest paintings belong to this time – Winter Sunlight, 1908, in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Moonrise, 1909 in the National Gallery of Victoria, and Golden Sunlight, 1914, gifted to the Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum by Dame Nellie Melba, being among the best. Having just returned from his first and only trip to England and the Continent, McCubbin’s practice was characterised by a lighter palette and a much looser application of paint, reflecting the liberating, painterly influence of his artistic mentor Romanticist J. M. W. Turner, as well as Corot, Monet and his English contemporary, George Clausen. That influence can be seen in these wonderfully atmospheric paintings such as the present Kensington Road, South Yarra, c.1908 which, each in their different ways dazzlingly colourful masterpieces, capture the feelings he expressed in a letter to his old friend Tom Roberts: ‘This is the loveliest place I have ever lived in. A charming old colonial house’ perched right over the Yarra with three acres of garden and trees... The winding stream, gums, osiers and wattle; interspersed. The night effects; sunrise, moonrise, we can see every way.’1 The old garden led to a paddock, which ran down to the Misses Armytage’s Como estate. The views over the Yarra were spectacular, whether towards Richmond as in The Coming of Spring, 1912, or the even more panoramic Flood Waters (also known as Rainbow over the Yarra), 1913 – both in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. A rainbow sometimes appeared in these later South Yarra views, a phenomenon of beauty and a metaphor of harmony. They had their genesis in numerous smaller sketches, spontaneous responses captured with a breadth of technique that gives them their special feeling of freedom and atmospheric delight. Although McCubbin is principally known for large scale paintings which depict subjects drawn from Australian pioneering life, he considered his smaller, later works a significant aspect of his art. As Anne Gray, Curator of the National Gallery of Australia’s exhibition McCubbin: Last Impressions elaborates, ‘McCubbin’s art was most remarkable during his final years. The late McCubbin is one of the top 10 artists in Australia. His daring, his experimental painterliness, and his ability to capture the Australian landscape produced some incredible work.’2 1. McCubbin to Roberts, December 1907, Letters to Tom Roberts, vol. II, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney 2. Anne Gray cited in Perkin, C., ‘Such Dreams of Colour’, Weekend Australian, 8 – 9 August 2009, p.4
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN 1855-1917 (A Quiet Study) (1886) oil on canvas 51 x 91.5 cm PROVENANCE: Frederick McCubbin, Melbourne The Bickley Family, Melbourne, acquired from the above Private Collection, Queensland, by descent from the above
Frederick McCubbin (1855-1917) Fowls, Macedon, 1908 signed lower right: 'F. McCubbin' 0il on canvasboard 25.5 x 35.5cm (10 1/16 x 14in). For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
![Frederick McCubbin, Portrait of the artist’s son John [Sydney], 1903](https://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/Deutscher_and_Hackett/25/803625/H4043-L422260506.jpg)
