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 (1855 - 1917) THE HILLSIDE, MACEDON, 1904 oil on canvas 51.0 x 76.5 cm signed and dated lower left: F McCubbin . / 1904 bears inscription with title on backing verso: HILLSIDE, MACEDON CAT NO 12 PROVENANCE Private collection Danuta and Ted Rogowski, Melbourne The Rogowski Collection, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 23 February 1998, lot 39 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED probably: Mr Fred McCubbin's Exhibition of Australian Paintings, Upper Athanaeum Hall, Melbourne, 22 April 1904 Selected Australian Works of Art, Lauraine Diggins Gallery, Melbourne, May 1984, cat. 11 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) A Happy Life: Frederick Mccubbin's Small Paintings & Oil Sketches, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991, and touring, cat. 12 (bears inscription on backing board verso) Overland, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 10 March – 15 July 2012 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan about Geelong Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE ‘Art Notes. Mr McCubbin’s Exhibition of Paintings’, The Age, Melbourne, 22 April 1904, p. 8 Art and Australia, Fine Arts Press, Sydney, vol. 21, no. 3, autumn 1984, p. 285 (illus.) Clark, J., A Happy Life, Frederick Mccubbin Small Paintings and Oil Sketches, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991, cat. 12, pp. 17 (illus.), 21 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 16, 32 (illus.), 226 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. When Frederick McCubbin moved to Macedon in 1901 he entered upon, as his son Alexander later wrote, 'the most fertile and vigorous period of his life.’1 Some of his best and most popular works soon followed including his masterpiece, The Pioneer, 1904, 'an established favourite' within a short time of its acquisition in 1906 by the National Gallery of Victoria through the Felton Bequest.2 When Childhood Fancies, 1905 (private collection) was first exhibited, the art critic for The Age wrote enthusiastically, 'McCubbin has never painted a more happily inspired picture.’3 And in Lost, 1907, (National Gallery of Victoria), another gem from this period, both the narrative and the early morning light filtering through the Macedon bush captured the public's imagination. McCubbin devoted himself enthusiastically to the subjects around him – 'The bush up our way looks more charming than ever', McCubbin wrote to his friend Tom Roberts in 1904. 'Pictures everywhere.’4 As the gifted interpreter of the secluded glade, he delighted in capturing the play of light in the subtlest of colours, of lyrical moments of childhood and the heroic endeavours of the early settlers of Victoria, the triptych format as much in veneration of the bush itself as of the pioneers. Significantly, McCubbin named their family Macedon home 'Fontainebleau' after the forest in France, neighbouring the village of Barbizon and its school of plein air painters, and especially McCubbin's favourite, Corot. Devoting himself to painting in the open air, he even dug a trench in the ground so that he could reach the canvas tops of The Pioneer. Now in the middle years of his art, his style became broader and vision fresher in response to painting out-of-doors directly from the motif, encapsulated in the present Hillside, Macedon, 1904. The smoothly painted, tight style of earlier years gives way to the freer, textured brushstroke and palette knife – transitions which are clearly visible in the comparison of Macedon landscapes such as A Bush Scene, 1903 (Art Gallery of Ballarat), with two works closely related to the present, namely The Clearing, Mount Macedon, c.1904 and Sunny Glade.5 In these later paintings, the brushstrokes are applied with such verve that they seem to dance in spontaneous response to the scene. As with Sylvan Glade, Macedon, 1906 (Bendigo Art Gallery), the focus of attention has now moved from the figure to capturing the enchanting play of light, and the atmospheric qualities of his beloved bush at Mount Macedon. Indeed, as The Age writer remarked his review of McCubbin’s solo exhibition at the Athenaeum Gallery, Melbourne in 1904, ‘ The Hillside, Macedon, is a fine rendering of the radiant atmosphere of the mountains; the composition has a fine diversity, and the foreground, in its harmony of tone, is a delightful piece of colour… in what is one of the most notable of the one-man shows that have been in Melbourne.’6 1. McCubbin, A., 'Biographical Sketch of the Life of Frederick McCubbin', in MacDonald, J., The Art of Frederick McCubbin, Lothian, Melbourne, 1916, p. 65 2. 'Mr. McCubbin's Exhibition of Pictures', The Age, Melbourne, 17 May 1907 3. 'Exhibition of Arts and Crafts', The Age, 20 November 1905, p. 5 4. Letters to Tom Roberts, vol. II, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, A2479, 7 November 1904 5. For The Clearing, Mount Macedon, c.1904, see Deutscher + Hackett, Melbourne, 8 December 2021, lot 9, and for Sunny Glade, see Sotheby's, Sydney, 25 August 2002, lot 13 6. ‘Art Notes. Mr McCubbin’s Exhibition of Paintings’, The Age, Melbourne, 22 April 1904, p.8 (as ‘The Hillside, Macedon’)
FREDERICK McCUBBIN (1855-1917) Richmond Quarry from South Bank of the Yarra c1910 oil on canvas-board 20.5 x 28.5 cm signed lower right: McCubbin bears inscription verso: From Mr. McCubbin/ X'mas 1910.
FREDERICK McCUBBIN (1855 - 1917), Towards Richmond, from Kensington Road, South Yarra, oil on canvas laid down on composition board, signed lower left, 25 x 35cm. Provenance: Leonard Joel, Australian, New Zealand, English & European Drawings & Paintings, Melbourne, 24/05/1973, Lot No. 25.
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855 - 1917) LOOKING NORTH FROM MOUNT MACEDON, 1906 oil on canvas on board 26.0 x 35.5 cm signed and dated lower right: F. McCubbin 1906 bears inscription verso: Looking North from / Mt Macedon / Sketch for large picture / at CTA Melb PROVENANCE Private collection Christie’s, Sydney, 22 October 1975, lot 377 Earl Gallery, Victoria Private collection, Victoria, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Exhibition of Australian Paintings, Earl Gallery, Victoria, nd, cat. 3 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, as ‘Looking North from Mt. Macedon’) RELATED WORK Looking North from Mount Macedon, 1906, oil on canvas, 62.0 x 123.0 cm, private collection
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855 - 1917) BUSH LANDSCAPE, MACEDON, 1905 oil on canvas 40.0 x 66.5 cm signed and dated lower right: F McCubbin / 1905 framer's label attached verso: John Thallon, Melbourne PROVENANCE Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne Private collection, Victoria, acquired from the above in July 1979 EXHIBITED Spring Exhibition, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 17 – 30 October 1979, cat. 39A (illus. in exhibition catalogue, as ‘Bushland’) 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. When Frederick McCubbin moved to Macedon in 1901 he entered upon, as his son Alexander later wrote, 'the most fertile and vigorous period of his life.’1 Some of his best and most popular works soon followed including his masterpiece, The Pioneer, 1904, 'an established favourite' within a short time of its acquisition in 1906 by the National Gallery of Victoria through the Felton Bequest.2 When Childhood Fancies, 1905 (private collection) was first exhibited, the art critic for The Age wrote enthusiastically, 'McCubbin has never painted a more happily inspired picture.’3 And in Lost, 1907, (National Gallery of Victoria), another gem from this period, both the narrative and the early morning light filtering through the Macedon bush captured the public's imagination. McCubbin devoted himself enthusiastically to the subjects around him – 'The bush up our way looks more charming than ever', McCubbin wrote to his friend Tom Roberts in 1904. 'Pictures everywhere.’4 As the gifted interpreter of the secluded glade, he delighted in capturing the play of light in the subtlest of colours, of lyrical moments of childhood and the heroic endeavours of the early settlers of Victoria, the triptych format as much in veneration of the bush itself as of the pioneers. Significantly, McCubbin named their family Macedon home 'Fontainebleau' after the forest in France, neighbouring the village of Barbizon and its school of plein air painters, especially McCubbin's favourite, Corot. Devoting himself to painting in the open air, he even dug a trench in the ground so that he could reach the canvas tops of The Pioneer. Now in the middle years of his art, his style became broader and vision fresher in response to painting out-of-doors directly from the motif, as readily seen here in Bush Landscape, Macedon, 1905. The smoothly painted, tight style of earlier years gave way to the freer, textured brushstroke and palette knife. These transitions are clearly visible in the comparison of Macedon landscapes such as A Bush Scene, 1903 (Art Gallery of Ballarat), and two works closely related to the painting on offer – The Hillside, Macedon 1904 (private collection, Melbourne), and Sunny Glade.5 In these later paintings, the brushstrokes are applied with such verve that they seem to dance in spontaneous response to the scene. The focus of attention had now moved from the figure to the enchanting play of light, as in Sylvan Glade, Macedon, 1906, in the Bendigo Art Gallery. In radiant sunlight or in shade, each of these paintings captures the characteristic qualities of his beloved bush at Mount Macedon, one of his most fruitful painting grounds. 1. McCubbin, A., 'Biographical Sketch of the Life of Frederick McCubbin', in MacDonald, J., The Art of Frederick McCubbin, Lothian, Melbourne, 1916, p. 65 2. 'Mr. McCubbin's Exhibition of Pictures', The Age, Melbourne, 17 May 1907 3. 'Exhibition of Arts and Crafts', The Age, 20 November 1905, p. 5 4. Letters to Tom Roberts, vol. II, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, A2479, 7 November 1904 5. For The Hillside, Macedon see Clark, J., 'A Happy Life': Frederick McCubbin's Small Paintings & Oil Sketches, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991, p. 17, p. 12 (illus.), and for Sunny Glade, Sotheby's, Sydney, 25 August 2002, lot 13
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN 1855-1917 Boat Sheds, Williamstown (1908) oil on canvasboard signed 'McCubbin' lower left 25 x 35 cm PROVENANCE Frederick McCubbin, Melbourne Private Collection, Melbourne, by descent from the above Australian Paintings, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 3 November 1976, lot 107, 'Harmony in Blue, Williamstown', illustrated Private Collection, Melbourne
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855 - 1917) WILLIAMSTOWN LANDSCAPE, 1909 oil on canvas 61.0 x 91.5 cm signed and dated lower left: F McCubbin / 1909 PROVENANCE The artist, until 1917 Thence by descent Louis McCubbin, Melbourne National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, acquired from the above in 1952 Company collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 1993 The National Australia Bank Art Collection, acquired from the above in 1995 (label attached verso) EXHIBITED Frederick McCubbin Exhibition to Mark the Centenary of the Artist's Birth in 1855, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 4 November – 31 December 1955, cat. 29, and touring to Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, January – February 1956, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, March 1956 Making Melbourne: Marvellous Melbourne - Industrial City, Gold Treasury Museum, Melbourne, 5 June – 5 December 2003 (as 'Williamstown') LITERATURE Francis, I., 'On Exhibition at Gallery', The News, Adelaide, 22 October 1952, p. 2 (illus.) 'Recent Purchases', The Advertiser, Adelaide, 22 October 1952, p. 2 George, E., 'SA Purchases', The Mail, Adelaide, 1 November 1952, p. 42 ‘“Williamstown Landscape”, by Frederick McCubbin (1855–1917)’, Quarterly Bulletin, National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, vol. 14, no. 2, October 1952, p. 4 (illus.) Hoff, U., Frederick McCubbin Exhibition to Mark the Centenary of the Artist’s Birth in 1855, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1955, cat. 29 (illus.) Hoff, U., ‘The Phases of McCubbin’s Art’, Meanjin, Melbourne, vol. 15, no. 3, September 1956, p. 305 Galbally, A., Frederick McCubbin, Hutchinson, Melbourne, 1981, pl. 36, pp. 135, 136 (illus.), 150, 151 Mackenzie, A., Frederick McCubbin 1855 – 1917: 'The Proff' and his art, Mannagum Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 204 Whitelaw, B., The Art of Frederick McCubbin, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991, p. 120 Ingram, T., ‘Moving The Masterpieces’, Australian Financial Review, Sydney, 10 March 1994 Dodgshun, B., 'On loan: Williamstown, 1909 by Frederick McCubbin', Treasured Moments: Newsletter for Staff at the Gold Treasury Museum, Melbourne, 2005 RELATED WORK Study for Williamstown Landscape, c.1909, oil on canvas board, 24.0 x 34.0 cm, private collection Williamstown, 1909, oil on canvas, 33.0 x 48.0 cm, private collection Wharves at Williamstown, c.1909, whereabouts unknown, illus., in Melba’s Gift Book of Australian Art and Literature, George Robertson & Co. Pty. Ltd., Melbourne, c.1915, p. 144 ESSAY The sparkling waters of Melbourne’s bayside suburb Williamstown were for Frederick McCubbin like those of Sydney and its harbour for Arthur Streeton. His enthusiasm can still be felt today in the lively seascapes and letter of the summer of 1909 to his old friend Tom Roberts: I have been down at Williamstown for a few poschards [rough sketches], my dear boy just like Venice, lovely colour. Water and sky and an old ship… the older I get the wider my interest grows in all life, colour, charm.1 Born in King Street, not far from the Melbourne docks, McCubbin’s interest in ships and docklands began early. It continued when, as a teenager, he drove one of his father’s bread carts ‘through North Melbourne down to the boats at the wharves’.2 View of the New Dock, 1880 (private collection) is one of his earliest oil paintings. Others followed – The City’s Toil, 1887 of Smith’s Wharf Yarra Yarra (Wesfarmers Collection) and Melbourne 1888, 1888 (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne). The Williamstown series, however, had its more immediate genesis in the oil sketches painted during McCubbin’s 1907 trip to England – of sunlit waters in The Blue Mediterranean, c.1907 (formerly in the collection of the late Professor Bernard Smith, Melbourne); Mount Vesuvius, Naples, c.1907 (Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 26 August 2009, lot 50); and busy shipping scenes on the River Thames, as in The Pool of London, 1907 (National Gallery of Victoria). Of the many colourful works McCubbin painted at Williamstown in that summer of 1909, Williamstown Landscape, 1909 is one of the finest. A favourite spot, he painted four versions – Sketch for ‘Williamstown Landscape’; Williamstown; Wharves at Williamstown; and Williamstown Landscape, detailed above. Working out of doors, McCubbin made small, atmospheric sketches in oil (usually 25 x 35 centimetres), translating select ones onto larger canvases in the studio, as in our painting. Introduced by Study for ‘Williamstown Landscape’, c.1909, its bright colours are deftly handled with broad brush and palette knife. Prestigious previous ownership includes the artist, Esther Paterson, and Melbourne art dealer Georges Mora. Next, Williamstown, 1909, also of distinguished provenance, having been purchased from the artist by Lawrence Abrahams, is larger in size and painted on canvas. It and Wharves at Williamstown (illustrated in Melba’s Gift Book) are closest to the painting on offer. Although again larger, Williamstown Landscape, 1909 remains medium of size, retaining the empathy of the smaller work. The humanising feeling continues through the centrally placed two figures in the boat. (The figures were probably introduced from another sketch, Figure Group, Williamstown, c. 1909, the background buildings in the sketch being similar to those of Williamstown Landscape, 1909.3) Key placement of figures, particularly children, in the landscape is characteristic McCubbin, seen in such masterly paintings as Lost, 1886 (National Gallery of Victoria) and throughout his oeuvre. In Williamstown Landscape, 1909 the narratives of the early years give way to the bravura handling of colour and light of his later style – the red shirt of one, and the sunlight striking the white hat and shirt of the other. And all is enveloped in a luminous atmosphere, almost aqueous. Blue skies and waters predominate throughout these paintings. One is even acknowledged with the title Harmony in Blue, Williamstown, 1909 (formerly George Page Cooper collection, Melbourne). Significantly, when the National Gallery of Victoria held its McCubbin centenary exhibition in 1955, Williamstown Landscape, 1909 and Williamstown, 1909, the study from the Abrahams’ collection, were the only two selected to represent the series. Our painting also had the distinction of being one of the few illustrated in the catalogue.4 Curated by Ursula Hoff, the following year Meanjin published her perceptive article on McCubbin, referring to his use of the open-air sketch preparatory to the larger canvases ‘painted in the studio, in a manner combining the broken colour of Impressionism with poetic romanticism.’ She continued: One such sketch was Williamstown 1909 (Harry Abrahams Esq.). It was to be seen in the Centenary Exhibition alongside the larger work from the Adelaide National Gallery. The open-air sketch, with its very bright blues and greens intermingling with spots of red shows an even more romantic heightening of colour than the finished picture, in which both colour and composition have been slightly conventionalized. … McCubbin saw Williamstown through the eyes of Turner.5 McCubbin’s life-long interest in J.M.W. Turner – especially his late works and watercolours of Venice – increased considerably after being admired at first hand during his visit to England in 1907. Describing them as ‘dreams of colour’, Williamstown gave McCubbin the opportunity to paint his own spontaneous works of sparkling light.6 Some twenty-five Williamstown subjects are known, twenty-three in oil, two in watercolour. Most were painted on sketching tablets. The watercolours, Williamstown, c. 1909 (Art Gallery of South Australia) and Mid-Summer Glow, c.1909, (formerly McCubbin Family) are highly Turneresque.7 Complete within themselves, they also served as studies for the major oil painting of the series, The Old Ship, Williamstown, c.1909 – 15 (private collection). Its view is taken from the other side of the sheds in our painting. Williamstown Landscape, 1909 remained in the McCubbin family collection until its sale to the Art Gallery of South Australia in 1952. As McCubbin’s son, Louis, had been many years director of the Gallery previously, he would have ensured that it acquired something special. This is confirmed by its warm reception on first public showing. The Adelaide News described it as ‘an excellent medium-sized’ work.8 And the Adelaide Mail claimed it to be ‘as fine as the well-known “Stone Crusher” in the same gallery’.9 The Gallery’s Bulletin for October 1952 hailed it as ‘an excellent example of [McCubbin’s] late period.’ It continued: The serenity of early summer and the glow of afternoon light are beautifully expressed in this canvas by means of broken touches of opalescent colour, laid on with a palette-knife. The mood is that of romantic impressionism.10 Williamstown Landscape, 1909 with its romance of light and colour represents a singular work in McCubbin’s oeuvre. 1. Frederick McCubbin letter to Tom Roberts, 27 January 1909 ( Letters to Tom Roberts, vol. II, no. 18, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales) 2. MacDonald, J., The Art of Frederick McCubbin, Lothian Press, Melbourne, 1916, p. 40 3. Spring Exhibition, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 1 – 10 September 1980, cat. 62 (illus.), as ‘Williamstown’ 4. Frederick McCubbin Exhibition, To Mark The Centenary of the Artist’s Birth in 1855, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1955, cats. 28 and 29 5. Hoff, U., ‘The Phases of McCubbin’s Art’, Meanjin, Melbourne, vol. 15, no. 3, 1956, p. 305 6. Frederick McCubbin letter to Annie McCubbin, 19 July 1907, McCubbin Papers, La Trobe Library, State Library of Victoria, MS8525La 7. Mid-Summer Glow, c.1909, watercolour, 23 x 24 cm, sold Christie’s, Melbourne, 3 May 1988, lot 140 8. Francis, I., ‘Aust. pictures help gallery’, The News, Adelaide, 22 October 1952, p. 2 9. George, E., ‘Art’, The Mail, Adelaide, 1 November 1952, p. 42 10. ‘ “Williamstown Landscape” by Frederick McCubbin (1855-1917)’, Bulletin of the National Gallery of South Australia, vol. 14, no. 2, October 1952, np. (illus.) DAVID THOMAS
FREDERICK McCUBBIN (1855 - 1917) DUDLEY FLATS, WEST OF MELBOURNE oil on canvas 25.5 x 36.0 cm signed lower right: F McCubbin PROVENANCE Malvern Fine Art Gallery, Victoria, July 1981 (label attached verso) Private collection, Melbourne Menzies, Sydney, 8 December 2011, lot 91 Private collection, Melbourne Lawson~Menzies, Sydney, 13 February 2013, lot 31 Private collection, Sydney
FREDERICK McCUBBIN (1855 - 1917) THE CLEARING, MT. MACEDON, c.1904 oil on canvas board 35.5 x 25.5 cm signed lower left: F McCubbin PROVENANCE 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. 80 (label attached verso, as ‘In the Dandenongs’) Three Varied Exhibitions Of Fine Australian Traditional Art, Bugle Galleries, Adelaide, 24 February – 30 March 1976 (as ‘Dandenong Hillside’) RELATED WORK The Hillside, Macedon, 1904, oil on canvas, 51.2 x 76.4 cm, private collection, illus. in Clark, J., 'A Happy Life': Frederick McCubbin's Small Paintings & Oil Sketches, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991, p. 17 ESSAY When Frederick McCubbin moved to Macedon in 1901 he entered upon, as his son Alexander later wrote, 'the most fertile and vigorous period of his life.’1 Some of his best and most popular works soon followed including his masterpiece, The Pioneer 1904, 'an established favorite' within a short time of its acquisition in 1906 by the National Gallery of Victoria through the Felton Bequest.2 When Childhood Fancies 1905 (private collection) was first exhibited, the art critic for The Age wrote enthusiastically, 'McCubbin has never painted a more happily inspired picture .’3 And in Lost 1907, (National Gallery of Victoria), another gem from this period, both the narrative and the early morning light filtering through the Macedon bush captured the public's imagination. McCubbin devoted himself enthusiastically to the subjects around him - 'The bush up our way looks more charming than ever', McCubbin wrote to his friend Tom Roberts in 1904. 'Pictures everywhere.’4 As the gifted interpreter of the secluded glade, he delighted in capturing the play of light in the subtlest of colours, of lyrical moments of childhood and the heroic endeavours of the early settlers of Victoria, the triptych format as much in veneration of the bush itself as of the pioneers. Significantly, McCubbin named their family Macedon home 'Fontainebleau' after the forest in France, neighbouring the village of Barbizon and its school of plein air painters, especially McCubbin's favourite, Corot. Devoting himself to painting in the open air, he even dug a trench in the ground so that he could reach the canvas tops of The Pioneer. Now in the middle years of his art, his style became broader and vision fresher in response to painting out-of-doors directly from the motif, as readily seen in The Clearing, Mount Macedon, c.1904. The smoothly painted tight style of earlier years gave way to the freer, textured brushstroke and palette knife. These transitions are clearly visible in the comparison of Macedon landscapes such as A Bush Scene 1903, in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ballarat, and two works close to the painting on offer - The Hillside, Macedon 1904, private collection, Melbourne, and Sunny Glade.5 In these later paintings the brushstrokes are applied with such verve that they seem to dance in spontaneous response to the scene. The focus of attention had now moved from the figure to the enchanting play of light, as in Sylvan Glade, Macedon 1906, in the Bendigo Art Gallery. In radiant sunlight or in shade, each of these paintings captures the characteristic qualities of his beloved bush at Mount Macedon, one of his most fruitful paintings grounds. 1. McCubbin, A., 'Biographical Sketch of the Life of Frederick McCubbin', in MacDonald, J., The Art of Frederick McCubbin, Lothian, Melbourne, 1916, p. 65 2. 'Mr. McCubbin's Exhibition of Pictures', The Age, Melbourne, 17 May 1907 3. 'Exhibition of Arts and Crafts', The Age, 20 November 1905, p. 5 4. Letters to Tom Roberts, vol. II, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, A2479, 7 November 1904 5. For The Hillside, Macedon see Clark, J., 'A Happy Life': Frederick McCubbin's Small Paintings & Oil Sketches, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991, p. 17, p. 12 (illus.), and for Sunny Glade, Sotheby's, Sydney, 25 August 2002, lot 13 DAVID THOMAS
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN 1855-1917 Portrait of My Mother (1900) oil on canvas signed 'F McCubbin' lower right 50.6 x 37.8 cm frame: original, maker unknown, Melbourne PROVENANCE Frederick McCubbin, Melbourne Private Collection, Victoria, by descent from the above LITERATURE Andrew McKenzie, Frederick McCubbin 1855-1917: 'The Proff' and His Art, Mannagum Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 19 (illustrated)
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN 1855-1917 A Forest Glade 1913 oil on canvas signed and dated 'Fred McCubbin / 1913' lower right 118 x 92.5 cm PROVENANCE Frederick McCubbin, Melbourne Louis McCubbin, Melbourne, by descent from the above Magnificent Collection of Pictures, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 9 June 1932, lot 118 Fine Collection Pictures, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 30 September 1936, lot 40 Ernest Hughes, Melbourne, until Authentic Antiques & Art of Canon Hughes, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 7 October 1937, lot 275 Cyril Steele, Melbourne Magnificent Collection of Australian Pictures [Estate of the late H. Cyril Steele; Estate of the late Mrs E.C. Traill; and other Estate], Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 3 October 1946, lot 26 Lorna Moffat-Pender, Melbourne "Court House", 9 Gordon Grove, South Yarra to the order of Mrs I. Moffat-Pender owing to the sale of the property and her early departure for England, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 19 November 1951, lot 48 Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, acquired from the above, until Australian + International Art, Deutscher-Menzies, Sydney, 10 March 2004, lot 69, 'The Glade', illustrated Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED On long-term loan to Horsham Regional Gallery, Horsham, until November 2020 LITERATURE Ann Galbally, Frederick McCubbin (rev. ed.), Hutchinson Australia, Melbourne, 1985, p. 154 Lisa Sullivan, Frederick McCubbin: Whisperings in Wattle Boughs, Geelong Gallery, Geelong, 2021, p. 30 (illustrated)
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN 1855-1917 Looking Towards Richmond from Kensington Road, South Yarra watercolour on paper signed and dated 'F McCubbin' lower right 32 x 50 cm frame: original, S. Glasier & Co., Melbourne PROVENANCE Frederick McCubbin, Melbourne Private Collection, Victoria, by descent from the above
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN 1855-1917 The Letter 1884 oil on canvas signed and dated 'F McCubbin 1884' lower right 45.5 x 22.6 cm frame: original, John Thallon, Melbourne PROVENANCE Frederick McCubbin, Melbourne Private Collection, Victoria, by descent from the above LITERATURE David Thomas, 'Frederick McCubbin', Art and Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney, June 1969, p. 66 Jane Clark and Bridget Whitelaw, Golden Summers: Heidelberg and Beyond, International Cultural Corporation of Australia Limited, Sydney, 1985, p. 43 Andrew McKenzie, Frederick McCubbin 1855-1917: 'The Proff' and His Art, Mannagum Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 38
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN 1855-1917 Garden Study, Brighton 1899 watercolour on paper signed and dated 'F McCubbin. / 1899' lower left 21.5 x 27 cm PROVENANCE Frederick McCubbin, Melbourne Private Collection, Melbourne Private Collection, Sydney, by descent from the above Private Collection, Sydney, by descent from the above
FREDERICK McCUBBIN (1855 - 1917) A VIEW OF MELBOURNE FROM THE RIVER, c.1885 pencil and ink on paper 20.5 x 31.5 cm (sheet) signed lower right: F. McCubbin inscribed with title verso: A View of Melbourne from the River PROVENANCE Private collection Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne Private collection, Sydney Thence by descent Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED A Very Private Collection, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 15 June – 15 July 1990, cat. 45 (as ‘Dock Scene, Melbourne’)
FREDERICK McCUBBIN (1855 - 1917) COLLINS STREET, MELBOURNE, c.1915 oil on canvas board 25.5 x 35.5 cm signed lower left: F McCubbin PROVENANCE Sir Keith Murdoch, Cruden Farm, Victoria Thence by descent Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, Cruden Farm, Victoria Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne RELATED WORK Collins Street, c.1915, oil on canvas board, 25.5 x 35.5 cm, in the collection of Geelong Gallery, Victoria Collins Street, c.1915, oil on canvas board, 25.5 x 30.5 cm, in the collection of National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne ESSAY In 2009, the National Gallery of Australia exhibition , McCubbin: Last Impressions 1907–17, showcased the work produced by Frederick McCubbin during the final eleven years of his life. Curated by Anne Gray, the exhibition featured three Collins Street sketches all painted around 1915 on 10 x 12-inch canvas board. Notably, this group of smaller Melbourne cityscapes – which included the nearby Flinders Street subjects – were the most abstract in the exhibition. The following excerpts are from Anne Gray’s catalogue essays and notes accompanying the group of Collins Street, c.1915 works: ‘…In 1915, at the age of 60, McCubbin purchased an old Renault, and became, according to Daniel Thomas, ‘a modern motorised McCubbin’. The car was used for painting excursions into the city, and McCubbin began a new series of works of this most modern of subjects. He delighted in capturing the flickering light, and the almost dissolving, abstract forms of the city’s activity. As his daughter Kathleen recalled, ‘We parked near the top end of Collins Street, facing the city. The latish afternoon sun was shining brilliantly on the tops of the buildings, and this was the ideal subject for one of father’s swift sketches. Hastily taking out his palette from the box he always carried in the car, he squeezed out blobs of paint and swiftly blended the colours together with his palette knife. Within moments the sky and the illuminated facades began to take shape on the sketching board (Mangan, 1984, p 50).’ 1 ‘Long regarded as one of Melbourne’s most fashionable and cosmopolitan streets – the address of some of the city’s most exclusive retailers and clubs, as well as medical, financial and cultural institutions – Collins Street was the subject of a number of paintings from McCubbin’s later years, continuing his longstanding interest in urban vistas. As one of the principal east-west thoroughfares in Robert Hoddle’s original city grid of 1837, Collins Street was at the peak of its splendour on the mid 1880s when McCubbin took up his appointment as drawing master at the National Gallery’s school. Throughout his career, he maintained an association with a number of premises and organisations located on the street (or within adjoining arcades), including Grosvenor Chambers, Athenaeum Hall, the Savage Club and the offices of the Australasian Sketcher.’2 Commenting on McCubbin’s painting technique for Collins Street, c. 1915 (National Gallery of Victoria) Anne Gray noted: ‘…the surface of the work is encrusted with small, jewel like dabs of paint. Other areas are painted thinly or rubbed back. McCubbin has also scraped into the paint with the handle of the brush to create highlights. The scene is highly abstracted, the people on the street mere vertical notations of paint, the facades of the buildings appearing to dissolve into pure colour and pattern, recalling Monet’s series of paintings of the façade of Rouen cathedral.‘ 3 1. Gray, A., McCubbin: Last Impressions 1907-17, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2009, p. 145 2. Ibid., p.147 3. Ibid., p.145
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN (1855-1917) Untitled (Bush Study, Mount Macedon) 1907 oil on canvas board signed and dated lower right: F McCubbin 1907 35.5 x 25.5cm PROVENANCE Leonard Joels, 1960s Dr John Tange, Hawthorn, Melbourne Private Collection, Melbourne NOTE Certificate of Authenticity from John R Perry, Fine Art Conservator is supplied with the painting
Frederick McCubbin (1855-1917) Study for 'The City's Toil', c.1887 signed lower right: 'F.McCubbin' oil on canvas 30.5 x 51.0cm (12 x 20 1/16in). For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
FREDERICK McCUBBIN (1855 – 1917) BURNLEY, c.1914 oil on canvas board 25.5 x 35.5 cm signed lower left: F McCubbin bears inscription verso: F. McCubbin / Burnley / c.1914 (indistinct) PROVENANCE Hugh McCubbin Dr John McCubbin, until 1976 Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 4 November 1976, lot 236 (as 'South Yarra Landscape') John H. Robinson Jean Robinson, thence by descent Private collection, Victoria RELATED WORK Coming of Spring, 1912, oil on canvas, 69.0 x 102.0 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra ESSAY Burnley, c.1914 is one of a series of small studies that Frederick McCubbin made of the landscape and buildings around Burnley, many of which feature the Burnley quarry. After his return from Europe at the end of 1907, McCubbin moved with his family to the rented property ‘Carlesberg’, a historic house at 42 Kensington Road, South Yarra, which offered a large garden and views across the Yarra river, to the city and the nearby suburb of Burnley. McCubbin’s paintings, after his only trip to Europe, were characterised by a lighter palette and a much looser application of paint, reflecting the influence of artists such as the Romanticist J.M.W Turner, as well as Corot, Monet and his English contemporary, George Clausen. The use of a palette knife is also evident in many of these paintings from the last years of his career. Although McCubbin is principally known for large scale paintings which depict subjects drawn from Australian pioneering life, he considered his smaller works a significant aspect of his art. As Anne Gray, Curator of the National Gallery of Australia’s exhibition McCubbin: Last Impressions has indicated, ‘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.’1 1. Anne Gray cited in Perkin, C., ‘Such Dreams of Colour’, Weekend Australian, 8-9 August 2009, p.4
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN 1855-1917 Winter at Nunawading 1886 oil on canvas signed and dated 'F McCubbin / 1886' lower right 60.5 x 87 cm PROVENANCE: Frederick McCubbin, Melbourne Private Collection, Melbourne, by descent from the above Australian Paintings, Christie's Australia, Sydney, 3 October 1972, lot 127, illustrated Private Collection, Sydney, acquired from the above Private Collection, Sydney, by descent from the above EXHIBITIONS: Summer Exhibition, Australian Artists' Association, Buxton's Art Gallery, Melbourne, 4 March 1887, no. 7, £31.10.0 LITERATURE: 'Australian Artists' Association. Summer Exhibition', The Argus, Melbourne, 5 March 1887, p. 14 'Australian Artists' Association', The Herald, Melbourne, 7 March 1887, p. 4 'Australian Artists' Association. Summer Exhibition', The Australasian, Melbourne, 19 March 1887, p. 4
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN 1855-1917 What the Little Girl Saw in the Bush 1904 oil on canvas signed and dated 'F McCubbin / 1904' lower right 96.5 x 66 cm PROVENANCE Frederick McCubbin, Melbourne Athenaeum Upper Hall, Melbourne Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in April/May 1904 (Probably) Sidney Dark, Melbourne Kozminsky Gallery, Melbourne Graham Joel, Melbourne, by 1970 Private Collection, Melbourne, by descent from the above EXHIBITED Mr. Fred McCubbin's Exhibition of Australian Paintings, Athenaeum Upper Hall, Melbourne, 22 April 1904, no. 16, £21.0.0 First City of Mordialloc Arts Festival, Mentone City Hall, 1-5 May 1965, no. 22, 'Fantasy' Spirit of Place, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, August 1977, no. 39, 'Fairies in the Glade' The Art of Frederick McCubbin, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne,18 December 1991 - 25 February 1992, and tour, no. 42, illustrated Our Country: Australian Federation Landscapes 1900-1914, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 14 September - 18 November 2001, illustrated Masterpieces of Australian Impressionism, Bonhams & Goodman, Melbourne, 24-26 July 2009, no. 9 Looking for Fairies: The Victorian Tradition, Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo, 16 October - 28 November 2010, illustrated A Distinguished Private Collection of Australian Art, Sotheby's Australia (now trading as Smith & Singer), Melbourne, 25 February - 8 March 2013, no. 65, illustrated LITERATURE 'Mr. McCubbin's Exhibition of Paintings', The Age, Melbourne, 22 April 1904, p. 8 'Exhibition of Australian Art', The Argus, Melbourne, 22 April 1904, p. 7 'Mr. McCubbin's Exhibition of Paintings', The Leader, Melbourne, 23 April 1904, p. 26 'Social Circle', The Leader, Melbourne, 14 May 1904, p. 37 James MacDonald, The Art of Frederick McCubbin, Lothian Book Publishing, Melbourne, 1916, p. 96 Leigh Astbury, 'The Art of Frederick McCubbin and the Impact of the First War', The La Trobe Library Journal, Melbourne, Vol. 6, No. 24, October 1979, pp. 81 (illustrated), 82 Ann Galbally, Frederick McCubbin, Hutchinson, Melbourne, 1981, plate 24, pp. 110, 111, 112, 115 (illustrated), 148 Leigh Astbury, City Bushman: The Heidelberg School and the Rural Mythology, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1985, pp. 175, 195-196 Andrew Mackenzie, Frederick McCubbin 1855-1917: 'The Proff' and His Art, Mannagum Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 124 Bridget Whitelaw, The Art of Frederick McCubbin, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991, pp. 76, 77 (illustrated) Ron Radford, Our Country: Australian Federation Landscapes 1900-1914, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2001, pp. 82, 83 (illustrated), 155 Anne Gray, McCubbin: Last Impressions 1907-17, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2009, pp. 44, 45 (illustrated) Anna Clabburn, Looking for Fairies: The Victorian Tradition, Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 2010, n.p. (illustrated) Geoffrey Smith and David Hansen, A Distinguished Private Collection of Australian Art, Sotheby's Australia (now trading as Smith & Singer), Melbourne, 2013, pp. 4, 10, 36 (illustrated), 37 (illustrated), 98
A bundle of books about the Australian artist Frederick McCubbin. A mixed lot in good condition. Includes: Daisy Chains, Gabally, Managan and the Art of Frederick Mccubbin.
