LAMBERT, George Washington (1873-1930) (3) 'Barefoot Girl', initialled lower left (20.5x14.5cm); 'First Corsage', initialled lower centre, 18x11.5cm (oval); and 'Day Dreaming', signed mid centre right (20x13.5cm) Pencil (3) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney; Estate Late Elinor Wrobel.
LAMBERT, George Washington (1873-1930) (2) 'Gulf Idyll', signed lower right, 29x29cm (irregular); and 'Study for Gulf Idyll', initialled lower left (14x23.5cm) Both works exhibited at Wooloomooloo Gallery, Sydney, in 1986, and at S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, in 1993. Ink, Gouache & Pencil (2) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney; Estate Late Elinor Wrobel.
LAMBERT, George Washington (1873-1930) 'At the Polo Match,' c.1890. Unsigned Ink & Pencil 23.5x26cm (sight) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney; Estate Late Elinor Wrobel. EXHIBITIONS: George Washington Lambert, S.H. Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, Sydney, 22nd August - 8th October 1978, cat #63; A Brush with the Bush: Geoge Lambert, the Early Years, S.H> Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 18th June - 18th July 1993, cat #51.
LAMBERT, George Washington (1873-1930) (2) 'Naughty Girl', signed lower left (to fold in skirt) (23x15.5cm); and 'Little Nora Sunday Best,' 1897, signed lower right, 21x14cm (oval) Both works exhibited at S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, in 1978 and 1993. The latter work also exhibited at Art Gallery New South Wales, Sydney, in 1993 (label verso) Pencil (2) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney; Estate Late Elinor Wrobel.
LAMBERT, George Washington (1873-1930) (2) 'Seated Gentleman', signed and inscribed verso (23x15.5cm; and 'Young Man with Pipe', signed lower right (24x17cm) Both works exhibited at S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, in 1978. Pencil (2) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney; Estate Late Elinor Wrobel.
George Washington LAMBERT (1873-1930) . Élégante à sa toilette, 1905 Aquarelle et gouache sur papier Signée et datée en bas, au centre "Geo W. LAMBERT 1905". Encadrée sous verre et passe-partout 15,5 x 21,5 cm.
PROPERTY FORMERLY FROM THE COLLECTION OF JOSEPH & AMY NIELD, NEW SOUTH WALES GEORGE W. LAMBERT (1873-1930) Painting of Grace Nield 1891 oil on panel 45.5 x 25.5 cm; 49.0 x 28.0 cm (framed) signed with initials and dated lower right: GL/ 1891
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873-1930) Lottie pencil on paper signed lower centre: G W Lambert titled verso 18 x 17cm (42 x 39.5cm framed) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney EXHIBITIONS: George Washington Lambert, S.H. Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, Sydney, 22 August - 8 October 1978, cat. no. 76 A Brush with the Bush: George Lambert in the Early Years, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 1993
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873-1930) Study of Two Boys pencil on paper initialled lower left artist's name and titled verso 20 x 16.5cm (39 x 33cm framed) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney EXHIBITIONS: George Washington Lambert, S.H. Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, Sydney, 22 August - 8 October 1978, cat no. 65 Drawings of George Lambert, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1993 A Brush with the Bush: George Lambert in the Early Years, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 1993
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873-1930) Naughty Girl c.1895 pencil on paper titled and inscribed verso 23 x 15.5cm (48.5 x 38cm framed) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney EXHIBITIONS: George Washington Lambert, S.H. Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, Sydney, 22 August - 8 October 1978, cat. no. 74 A Brush with the Bush: George Lambert in the Early Years, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 1993 OTHER NOTES: Study for 'Oh, let us be joyful!' 1895, held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, published in Bulletin, 18 January 1896
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873-1930) Little Norah: Sunday Best 1897 pencil on paper signed lower right: G W L (partially obscured) titled on AGNSW label verso 21 x 14cm (45 x 37.5cm framed) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney EXHIBITIONS: George Washington Lambert, S.H. Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, Sydney, 22 August - 8 October 1978, cat. no. 71 The Drawings of George Lambert, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 20 February - 2 May 1993, 5a (label verso) A Brush with the Bush: George Lambert in the Early Years, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 1993 LITERATURE: Illustrated The Bulletin, 1897, pg. 18
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873-1930) At the Polo Match c.1890 pencil and ink on paper titled, dated and inscribed verso 23.5 x 26.5cm (43 x 45cm framed) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney EXHIBITIONS: George Washington Lambert, S.H. Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, Sydney, 22 August - 8 October 1978, cat. no. 63 A Brush with the Bush: George Lambert in the Early Years, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 1993, cat. no. 51
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873-1930) Seated Gentleman pencil on paper signed and inscribed verso: drawn with / left hand / Geo W Lambert alternate sketch verso 23 x 15cm (40 x 32cm framed) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney EXHIBITIONS: George Washington Lambert, S.H. Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, Sydney, 22 August - 8 October 1978, cat. no. 69 A Brush with the Bush: George Lambert in the Early Years, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 1993
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873-1930) Young Man with Pipe pencil on paper signed lower right: G W LAMBERT 24 x 17cm (40 x 32.5cm framed) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney EXHIBITIONS: George Washington Lambert, S.H. Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, Sydney, 22 August - 8 October 1978, cat. no. 74 (inscribed verso) A Brush with the Bush: George Lambert the Early Years, S. H. Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, Sydney, 1993
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873-1930) Gulf Idyll ink, gouache and pencil on paper signed lower right: Geo. W. LAMbERT titled and inscribed lower right: Gulf Idyll / "And the strange / wayward life / was at an / end / (I would like to see proof of this)" 29 x 29cm (40.5 x 42cm framed) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873-1930) Study for Gulf Idyll pencil on paper initialled lower left: G W L titled verso 14 x 23.5cm (38 x 50.5cm framed) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873-1930) The Ideal and the Real ink on paper signed lower centre: Geo W LAMbeRT titled on Woolloomooloo Gallery label verso 15 x 25cm (31 x 46.5cm framed) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873-1930) Nude Figure and Landscape 1907 oil on canvas signed and dated indistinctly lower left: G. Lambert 1907 20 x 29.5cm (37 x 46cm framed) PROVENANCE: The Fred and Elinor Wrobel Collection, Sydney EXHIBITIONS: International Society of Painters and Gravers, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1907, cat. 194 (label attached verso) George Washington Lambert, S.H. Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, Sydney, 22 August - 8 October 1978, cat. 22 (illus.) Nudes, Campbelltown City Bicentennial Art Gallery, Sydney, 11th July – 26th August 1990, cat. 34 LITERATURE: The Lone Hand, 21 June 1907, vol. 1, no. 2, p. 176 George Washington Lambert, S.H. Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, Sydney, 1978, p. 2 (illus.) Gray, A, George Lambert (1873-1930) Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculpture, Drawings in Public Collections, Bonamy Press, Perth in association with Sotheby's and The Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1996, P74, p. 20
LAMBERT, George Washington (1873-1930) The Race Initialled lower right 'GWL' Likely related to the large oil, 'The Tirranna Picnic Race Meeting,' 1927-29, in the collection of the University of Melbourne (see image). Lambert is known to have attended the Tirranna meeting in 1922, the course located around six miles from Goulburn. Pencil sketches of racehorses verso, and label for Anthony Hordern & Sons, Sydney. Oil on Ply 24x34.5cm 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.
A graphic scene showing the aftermath of an enemy attack on a camel-train. A trooper has dismounted his seated camel to attend to a fallen comrade lying prone on the ground. Another trooper clutching a rifle stoops to avoid fire while standing guard while a mounted trooper in the background points backwards to the source of the attack.
The Art of George W. Lambert A.R.A. Sydney: Art in Australia, 1924. First Edition. 28cm x 22cm. [viii], 40 pages, 93 plates (many tipped in and in colour). Quarter leather. Limited to 750 numbered copies, of which this is number 79. Minor soiling and wear to boards. Very minor tanning. Near Fine Condition.
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873 - 1930) HEAD OF A GIRL WITH REDDISH BROWN HAIR, 1915 oil on canvas on board 43.5 x 33.0 cm Lambert Memorial Trust stamp verso, signed by Gladys Owen and Basil Burdett PROVENANCE Anthony Hordern & Sons Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso) possibly Sir Edward Hayward, Adelaide David Dridan, South Australia Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne Peter Walker, Adelaide Private collection, New South Wales, acquired from the above c.2001 EXHIBITED Lambert Memorial Exhibition, Anthony Horderns' Fine Art Gallery, Sydney, 25 September – 15 October 1930, cat. 32 (as 'Portrait Study, Head of Girl with Reddish–brown Hair) Australian Paintings Colonial / Contemporary, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 2 – 19 April 1984, cat. 38 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, n.p.) LITERATURE The Home: an Australian Quarterly, Art in Australia, Sydney, vol. 11, no. 9, 1 September 1930 (illus. on cover as ‘Head of a Girl’) Burdett, B., ‘THE LAMBERT EXHIBITION’, Art in Australia, Sydney, 3rd series, no. 34, October – November 1930, p. 66 Gray, A., George Lambert 1873 – 1930: Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculpture, Drawings in Public Collections, Bonamy Press, Perth, Sotheby's Australia and Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1996, cat. P185, p. 60
LAMBERT, George Washington (1873-1930) 'Consider the Lilies - From a Club Window (for the Bulletin)' Poem by Bernard Espinasse verso. Gouache 16.5x22cm
George Washington Lambert (1873-1930) Nude Figure and Landscape, 1907 signed and dated indistinctly lower left: 'G. Lambert 1907' oil on canvas 20.0 x 29.5cm (7 7/8 x 11 5/8in). For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
George Washington Lambert (1873-1930) Harvesting, 1898 signed lower right: 'G. Lambert' oil on wood panel 34.5 x 17.5cm (13 9/16 x 6 7/8in). For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
GEORGE W. LAMBERT (1873-1930) Head of a Light Horseman oil on canvas on board 39.0 x 32.5 cm | bears inscription verso: Head of Light Horseman/ no 121 Lambert Memorial Catalogue
GEORGE W LAMBERT (1873-1930) Pickford Waller 1910 pencil on paper signed with initialed lower left: G.W.L 25.5 x 20.5cm PROVENANCE The Peter and Renate Nahum Collection, London
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873-1930) Portrait of Thea Proctor 1923 pencil on paper signed and dated lower centre: G W Lambert / 1923 19 x 11cm PROVENANCE: Gordon Galleries 1970 (label verso)
George Washington Lambert (1873-1930) Portrait of a Woman in a Floral Shawl, 1912 dated and signed lower right: '1912 GW LAMBERT' oil on linen 59.5 x 54.5cm (23 7/16 x 21 7/16in).
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (AUST, EUROPE, BRITAIN, 1873-1930) TITLED STUDY OF A MAN, PENCIL, SIGNED LOWER RIGHT, MEASURES 12CM W X 20CM H, ARTARMON GALLERIES STICKER TO VERSO WITH PROVIDENCE OF COLLECTION OF LATE MAURICE LAMBERT, VERIFIED BY MRS MAURICE LAMBERT
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873-1930) Portrait of a Gentleman sanguine and white chalk on toned paper signed lower centre: G W L 30 x 22.5cm PROVENANCE: Contents of Swanton, Sutton Forest
A graphic scene showing the aftermath of an enemy attack on a camel-train. A trooper has dismounted his seated camel to attend to a fallen comrade lying prone on the ground. Another trooper clutching a rifle stoops to avoid fire while standing guard while a mounted trooper in the background points backwards to the source of the attack.
LAMBERT, George Washington (1873-1930) 'Her Aim / What was her Maiden Name? / Her Maiden Aim was Money,' Initialled and inscribed 'Paris' lower left. Ink & Gouache 23.5x14cm
GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT (1873 - 1930) THE DEAD TREE, COLDSTREAM, 1926 oil on wood panel 34.0 x 42.0 cm signed and dated lower right: G W LAMBERT / (1926) signed and inscribed with title verso: “The Dead Tree”/ (sketch) / Painted at Dame Nellies / Place – Combe [sic.] – Coldstream / G W Lambert PROVENANCE Amy Lambert, London John Brackenreg, Sydney Harold Desbrowe Annear (inscribed verso) Artlovers Gallery, New South Wales (label attached verso) Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 31 July 1990, lot 258 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 17 September 1990 EXHIBITED A Group of Contemporary Painters, Grosvenor Galleries, Sydney, November 1928 The Exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1931. The 163rd, Royal Academy, London, 1931, cat. 721 Commemorative exhibition of works by late members, Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy, London, 7 January – 11 March 1933, cat. 259 Artlovers Gallery, Sydney, January 1959, cat. 7 (as ‘Landscape: The Fallen Tree’) Overland, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 10 March – 15 July 2013 Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May – 16 November 2014 on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE ‘Art Exhibitions: Contemporary Painters’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 29 November 1928, p. 15 Gray, A., George Lambert 1873–1930: Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculpture, Drawings in Public Collections, Bonamy Press, Perth, Sotheby's Australia and Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1996, cat. P426, p. 122 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 16, 52 (illus.), 223 ESSAY Having spent his teenage years in Australia, George Washington Lambert returned to Europe with family in 1900, aged twenty-seven. Following two years studying in Paris, 1901 – 1902, where he developed a close friendship with fellow expatriate artist Hugh Ramsay, Lambert moved to London where he lived and worked for almost two decades. From the family’s Chelsea residence, celebrity guests including the eminent soprano, Nellie Melba, and actress, Ellen Terry, were regularly entertained. After returning to Australia in November 1921, Nellie Melba invited Lambert ‘to her delightful country place’, Coombe Cottage at Coldstream, near Lilydale, Victoria where he found that ‘she was really too nice for words, robbing me of any thought of her being a hussy or a vicious spoiling. She wants me to do small jobs for her – a drawing & a painting. She really is nice to me and understanding’. He visited Melba again in 1926, and completed several small landscapes, including The dead tree, Coldstream, 1926. 1. Gray, A., George W. Lambert Retrospective: Heroes & Icons, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2007, p. 27
A graphic scene showing the aftermath of an enemy attack on a camel-train. A trooper has dismounted his seated camel to attend to a fallen comrade lying prone on the ground. Another trooper clutching a rifle stoops to avoid fire while standing guard while a mounted trooper in the background points backwards to the source of the attack.
GEORGE LAMBERT (1873 - 1930) PORTRAIT OF THEA PROCTOR, 1905 oil on canvas 51.0 x 41.0 cm signed and dated lower right: G. W LAMBERT / 1905 PROVENANCE Private collection Theodore Bruce, Adelaide, 30 July 1970 Private collection, Adelaide Thence by descent Private collection, Adelaide EXHIBITED Exhibition of Past Australian Painters Lent From Private South Australian Collections, Adelaide Festival of Arts, John Martin & Co. Limited, Adelaide, 8 – 29 March 1974, cat. 67 or 70 George Washington Lambert, S.H Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, The National Trust of Australia, Sydney, 22 August – 8 October 1978, cat. 13 RELATED WORK Miss Thea Proctor, 1903, oil on canvas, 90.0 x 69.8 cm, in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney ESSAY George Lambert and Althea (Thea) Proctor were students together in the late 1890s at the painting academy run by Julian Ashton, later renamed the Sydney Art School. In 1900, Lambert was awarded the inaugural Society of Artists’ Travelling Scholarship and left for England with his wife Amy, whom he had married two days earlier. In 1903, Proctor also arrived in London and to assist her finances, worked part-time as a paid model for Lambert Through this she become an integral component in a sequence of portraits that established her colleague’s European reputation as a painter of note, and Portrait of Thea Proctor, 1905, is a fine example of their collaboration. Proctor was acknowledged as one of the most stylish Australian women of her time. She combined charm and elegance with a renowned talent for art and design, particularly woodcuts, of which The rose, c.1928, and Women with fans, c.1930, are readily identifiable images from this country’s artistic heritage. In the lead up to leaving for London, Proctor had been engaged for some years to fellow art student Sydney Long, who shared one of the Ashton school’s studios with Lambert. Frustrated by Long’s reticence to commit, she returned the ring and left for overseas. Conversely, her connection to Lambert in London developed well beyond her role as model and she became, above all, his vibrant and intelligent art colleague; a confidant and muse, but not his lover as conjecture has often suggested. In fact, she became an extended member of the artist’s family, ‘a woman with whom Lambert could visit an exhibition while Amy stayed at home and looked after the children, and who in turn was willing to mind the children while he and Amy went to concerts or the theatre.’1 Their first success was the commanding Miss Thea Proctor, 1903, which so impressed the judges at the Royal Academy that it was ‘hung on the line’ at their annual exhibition. Proctor is depicted in this work as both sophisticated and aware, brimming with a forthright confidence that Lambert captured perfectly. In 1905, he painted Althea, a full-length portrait of Proctor wearing a high-necked black dress and striding across the moors with a greyhound.2 She is shown without a hat but the tilt of the head is identical to the painting on offer here, hinting that Portrait of Thea Proctor may well be a related work, with the main difference being that she is now crowned by a fashionably wide-rimmed and feathered hat, worn at a rakish, suggestive angle. Lambert’s bravura technique as a painter exudes from the frame, with the sweep of the feather carried through by the curves of Proctor’s neckline and the decorative black ribbon attached to the hat. A cameo of rich red and gold sits at her sternum, the colour of which assists to accentuate the sitter’s rich, auburn hair and sensual red lips. There are a number of major works by Lambert featuring Proctor and all but two are now owned by Australian State galleries. Of the latter, the prominent collector Kerry Stokes owns The blue hat, 1909; and Portrait of Thea Proctor, 1905, is the only example remaining in private hands.3 1. Gray, A., George Lambert retrospective: heroes and icons, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2007, p.17 2. Althea was subsequently cut down in size and has been re-titled Portrait of Thea Proctor by the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. 3. A final portrait of Proctor, location unknown, is illustrated in Jose, A. and others, The art of George W. Lambert A.R.A, Art in Australia, Sydney, 1924, pl. 46 ANDREW GAYNOR
GEORGE LAMBERT (1873 - 1930) EYRE AND WYLIE, 1908 oil on wood panel 26.5 x 38.0 cm signed lower right: G. W. LAMBERT inscribed on handwritten label attached verso: ‘Eyre the Explorer threatened by blacks who had murdered Baxter, Wylie (the aborigine) saved Eyre’s life' PROVENANCE Mrs. L. Abrahams, Melbourne, by 1918 George Page Cooper, Melbourne The Historical George Page Cooper Collection, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 21 November 1967, lot 354 Private collection, Adelaide Thence by descent Private collection, Adelaide EXHIBITED Loan Exhibition of Australian Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, April 1918, cat. 71 (as ‘Eyre the Explorer’) Exhibition of Past Australian Painters Lent From Private South Australian Collections, Adelaide Festival of Arts, John Martin & Co. Limited, Adelaide, 8 – 29 March 1974, cat. 69 (label attached verso) George Washington Lambert, S.H Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, The National Trust of Australia, Sydney, 22 August – 8 October 1978, cat. 8 LITERATURE Lang, W. H., Romance of Empire: Australia, T.C. & E.C. Jack, London, 1908, p. 164 (illus., as ‘Eyre and Wylie threatened by the murderers of Baxter’) Borlase, N., ‘A love of flamboyance’, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 September 1978, p. 17 Gray, A., George Lambert 1873–1930: Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculpture, Drawings in Public Collections, Bonamy Press, Perth, Sotheby's Australia and Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1996, cat. P88, p. 25 RELATED WORK Burke and Wills on the way to Mount Hopeless, 1907, watercolour, 26.2 x 38.5 cm, in the collection of Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria An historical incident (a little white hero), 1907, pencil, watercolour and gouache, 30.5 x 41.9 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Kate Kelly (during the last stand of the Kelly Gang), 1908, oil on canvas, 36.5 x 51.0 cm, private collection ESSAY The epic saga of Edward Eyre and Wylie’s arduous crossing of the Nullarbor Plain in 1841 is almost operatic in its dimension. The two young men experienced tragedy, starvation, deprivation and drought, yet both made it alive to King George’s Sound in Western Australia having stumbled overland for nearly 600 miles (965 kilometres) from their start in South Australia. When W. D. Lang’s Romance of Empire: Australia was being planned in 1907, it was to be the first national history written for child readers; thus, it was a certainty that Eyre and Wylie would be included in the narrative. However, the editorial choice of George Lambert to provide illustrations was particularly inspired and ensured that an artist who loved the Australian outback, its people and its horses would be responsible for visualising many of the book’s exciting ‘Boys Own’ moments. Eyre and Wylie, 1908, captures a pivotal moment two months after departure when the explorers’ overseer was shot by two of the party’s younger members, who then abandoned Eyre and Wylie to their fate; and Lambert’s crisp draughtsmanship is on full display. When commissioned to work with Lang, the artist was already noted for his illustrations for The Bulletin from 1895, and for similar work in three books published by Angus and Robertson. After re-locating to London in 1902, he continued the practice with Cassell’s and Pall Mall magazines, and the following year, drew lively sketches for Alexander Wilberforce (A. W.) Jose’s Two awheel: and some others afoot in Australia. However, Jose’s writing suffered next to Lambert’s contributions with The Bulletin for one proclaiming that ‘the illustrations are more interesting than the book.’1 In 1907, he was invited to create twelve images to accompany the text in Romance of Empire: Australia, one in a new series of books exploring outposts of the British Commonwealth; other countries included Canada, India, West Africa, New Zealand and South Africa. Lambert’s illustrations were originally executed in watercolour and he chose to subsequently reproduce a small number of these of these in oils, including the lot on offer here. The description of Eyre and Wylie’s journey covers three chapters in Romance of Empire: Australia and was informed by the author reading Eyre’s own account, published in 1845, and Professor J.W. Gregory’s The dead heart of Australia: a journey around Lake Eyre in the summer of 1901-1902, which appeared in 1906.2 In 1840, Eyre was still only twenty-five, yet had already gained notable attention for his entrepreneurship in driving stock from Sydney to South Australia, plus a sequence of explorations to the north of Adelaide. In January 1841, he commenced the attempt to cross the Nullarbor, and after a few stalled beginnings, Eyre sent most of the party back once they reached the head of the Great Australian Bight. His remaining companions were the overseer John Baxter; Wylie, a sixteen year-old Noongar man from the King George Sound district; and two younger boys, Neramberein and Cootachah, recorded as being from the Flinders Ranges.3 By mid-April, privations had set in sowing discontent, and on 29 April, disaster struck. Eyre had taken the first turn in watching the horses that night ‘and as it drew eleven he peered through the scrub to catch the glow of the camp fire, for Baxter’s watch began at that hour. Then suddenly, about a quarter of a mile away, there was a flash and the loud report of a gun.’4 Baxter was dead, shot by Neramberein or Cootachah who had apparently been disturbed by the overseer when they tried to steal supplies. Wylie chose to stay with Eyre in spite of repeated attempts over the next days by his former companions to entice him to join them; the two boys subsequently vanished. Lambert’s painting shows Eyre being menaced by the killers as Wylie cowers in his wake, an exaggerated stereotype rife in the Edwardian age. Even so, the artist has captured the high drama of the confrontation and vividly displays the physical privations endured by all the participants, horses included. Lambert has reduced the palette dramatically to monochromatic brown and grey reinforcing its emotive suggestion of a desperate moment in a desolate place. After many more struggles, the two men reached Albany where Wylie was greeted ecstatically by his people, who had believed him already dead. Of the twelve gouache and watercolour images which appeared in Romance of Empire: Australia, two are in the collections of the Bendigo Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Victoria. The two that Lambert chose to re-imagine in oil paint were Eyre and Wylie, and another of Ned Kelly’s sister Kate appealing to police at Glenrowan, location unknown. 1. ‘The red page: newly published’, The Bulletin, vol.24, no.1240, 19 November 1903, inside front cover, np 2. See Lang, W. H., Romance of Empire: Australia, T.C. & E.C. Jack, London, 1908, p.148 3. Also known as Yarry and Joey, the two boys were probably of the Adnyamathanha people, and both had already been in Eyre’s employ for some years. 4. Eyre, E. J., Journals of expeditions of discovery into central Australia and overland from Adelaide to King George’s Sound in the years 1840-1, T. and W. Boone, London, 1845, vol 2, (online), www.gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/e00048.html Viewed 12 October 2021 ANDREW GAYNOR
GEORGE LAMBERT (1873 - 1930) ARTIST AND HIS BATMAN, LIGHT HORSE CALVARY, JERUSALEM HEIGHTS, 1920 oil on canvas on plywood 31.5 x 42.0 cm signed with initials lower right: G. W. L PROVENANCE Private collection Sir Edward Hayward, Adelaide Old Clarendon Gallery, Adelaide (label attached verso) Private collection, Adelaide, acquired from the above in November 1982 Thence by descent Private collection, Adelaide EXHIBITED Royal Visit Loan Exhibition of Australian Paintings, National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide,1954 (label attached verso) Exhibition of Past Australian Painters Lent From Private South Australian Collections, Adelaide Festival of Arts, John Martin & Co. Limited, Adelaide, 8 – 29 March 1974, cat. 66 (label attached verso, as ‘Light Horse Cavalry, Jerusalem Height’) George Washington Lambert, S.H Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, The National Trust of Australia, Sydney, 22 August – 8 October 1978, cat. 41 (as ‘Australian Light Horse on the hills above Damascus’) Old Clarendon Gallery, Adelaide, 1982 (as ‘Portrait with Horses’) LITERATURE Gray, A., George Lambert 1873–1930: Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculpture, Drawings in Public Collections, Bonamy Press, Perth, Sotheby's Australia and Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1996, cat. P356, p. 95 (as ‘The artist and his batman’) RELATED WORK The official artist (Self Portrait), 1921, oil on canvas, 91.7 x 71.5 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra ESSAY When the First World War erupted, George Washington Lambert was aged forty and resident in Britain. A society painter of some renown, his equestrian portrait of Edward VII (1910) was considered by many as the best ever done of the monarch. Now considered an equal in London’s art world, Lambert had actually spent his formative years working on a sheep property at Warren in far-western New South Wales and remained in his heart a ‘country man’ with a great love of horses and abiding respect for people who worked the land. In late 1917, he was commissioned to be Australia’s sole war artist in Palestine, and through this ‘the war was to release the man of action that slumbered in Lambert. Always a keen observer, he was by this a splendidly trained draughtsman capable of painting equally well men, horses and landscape, and the incidents of war – the ideal man for Palestine.’1 Artist and his batman, Light Horse Cavalry, Jerusalem Heights, 1920, is a self-portrait as personal souvenir, one redolent of his experience embedded with the troops. Due to his age, Lambert was unable to enlist for the Australian Imperial Force, so he joined a voluntary unit called the United Arts Rifles, where he trained recruits in horsemanship. Following the appointment as war artist, he travelled to Palestine where the Light Horse Brigade was engaged in fighting the Turkish forces. On Christmas Day, ‘complete with a Light Horseman’s plumed hat, spurs, leggings and honorary commission as Lieutenant’, Lambert sailed for the Palestine front and disembarked in Alexandria three weeks later.2 The artist was dazzled by the blazing light which played over the jagged landscape, and soon recognised in the ‘“sweating, sun-bronzed men and beautiful horses” of the Light Horse, the pioneer bushmen he had observed working the wool trade (on) his uncle’s property at Warren.’3 Many of Lambert’s new companions were veterans of the Gallipoli campaign, and with their guidance and vivid stories, he moved from Egypt through to Syria and Palestine, producing forty-nine oil sketches and nearly a hundred drawings, as well as several sketchbooks filled with small pencil studies by the end of the three-month commission. In early 1919, Lambert was the only artist invited to join the historian Charles. E. W. Bean on the first official mission to visit Gallipoli since the ANZAC forces had evacuated. He again produced many images but also revealed his strength of character when he and others of the party were ‘forced to bury more than 300 bodies in a strip of land the size of three tennis courts [at The Nek], which prompted Lambert to write to his wife that “gruesome is scattered all over the battlefield... evidence grins coldly at us non-combatants and I feel thankful that I have been trained to stop my emotions at the border line.’’4 He then re-visited Palestine and Syria, painting more preparatory studies as he again stayed with the Light Horse whilst they demobilised. On return to London, Lambert set to work creating large paintings based on his sketches, armed with new understanding of the true horrors of war. Numerous of these are now star attractions at the Australian War Memorial, such as The charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba 1917, 1920; ANZAC, the landing 1915, 1920-22; and The charge of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade at the Nek, 7 August 1915, 1924. However, it is in the smaller, more intimate works painted at the same time that Lambert truly expressed himself, celebrating the camaraderie experienced amongst his fellow horsemen. Artist and his batman, Light Horse Cavalry, Jerusalem Heights is one of these and its sense of immediacy is striking. Jerusalem is set on a plateau 785 metres above sea level, with views overlooking the Dead Sea, the biblical Mountains of Moab, and coastal plains that march west toward the Mediterranean. It was territory Lambert knew intimately, having ‘camped for a time during the fierce heat of the summer of 1918 in Chauvel’s Desert Mounted Corps camp at Talaat ed Dum [just north of Jerusalem], in the hideous country of the Wilderness, and from there, and from the Light Horse camps down in the stifling Jordon Valley, he would walk out day after day for hours at his labour of love.’5 In this self-portrait, painted in the London studio, Lambert’s delight is obvious, seated with his portable paint box in this harsh land amongst the horses and men he so admired, his smiling face and favourite pipe accentuated by the curved loop of the white bridle. His batman, who has not been identified, wears the Light Horse emblem of an emu feather in his hat and was an essential companion in Palestine, being a soldier assigned to act as a servant to commissioned officers and who also looked after their horse (known as the bat-horse).6 Lambert returned to Australia in 1921 and was to enjoy another decade of success in Australia and Britain, but his experiences in the Middle East remained some of his happiest memories. He actively re-engaged with the Australian art community and was important in his advocacy and support for a number of younger artists. Horses, however, remained his greatest love and it was after a ride in May, 1930, as he leant over to fix a piece of timber to his mount’s drinking trough, that this grand cavalier died of a heart attack. Arthur Streeton was devastated to lose his old friend, writing to Basil Burdett that ‘it’s difficult to get the horrible news out of one’s head – it’s quite useless to fret about him. But everything here reminds me of him ... poor old Julian Ashton will feel it, he was always so proud of G. W. L.’7 1. Lindsay, L., ‘George Lambert – our first Australian master’, Art in Australia, 3rd series, no.36, February 1931, p.15 2. Roberts, Major M. L. H., ‘George Washington Lambert’, The Australian Light Horse Association, www.lighthorse.org.au/george-washington-lambert Viewed 12 October 2021 3. Yip, A., ‘George Lambert at Gallipoli. ‘A wonderful setting for the tragedy’: an artist captures the Anzac horror’, Look magazine, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2013, pp.10-11 4. Ibid. 5. Gullett, H.S., ‘Lambert and the Light Horse’, in: Art in Australia, ‘Lambert Memorial Number’, 3rd series, no.33, August-September 1930 6. Charles Bean recorded that Lambert was assigned a Light Horseman named (William?) Spruce from Port Stephens, NSW, to handle the mule the artist used to carry his supplies in Gallipoli, but there is no record that Spruce was also with Lambert in Palestine. The author thanks Hollie Gill at the Australian War Memorial for this information. 7. Arthur Streeton, letter to Basil Burdett, 31 May 1930. Transcribed in: Galbally, A., and Gray, A., Letters from Smike: the letters of Arthur Streeton 1890-1943, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1989, p.196. Between 1895 and 1899, Lambert studied with Julian Ashton who always remained proud of student’s achievements. ANDREW GAYNOR
LAMBERT, George Washington (1873-1930) 'Horse with Rug' Signed 'GW Lambert,' lower right. Literature: 'George Lambert Catalogue Raisonne,' Anne Gray, Bonamy Press, Sotheby's & Australian War Memorial cat #P471. Exhibited: Horderns 1930 (illustrated in catalogue cat #15); David Jones 1937 (loan section). Provenance: John B Pye (pencil inscription verso); private collection, Sydney. Oil on Board 32.5x40.5cm
GEORGE W. LAMBERT (1873-1930) The Blue-Coat Boy 1918 oil on board 38.5 x 29.5 cm signed and dated lower right: GW. LAMBERT 1918 signed and inscribed verso: The Blue Coat Boy/ Leonard Constant Lambert/ by Geo W. Lambert
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