A Summer Field c1905

ARTHUR STREETON (1867-1943)

A Summer Field c1905

oil on canvas on board
29.0 x 44.0 cm; 47.5 x 63.0 cm (framed)
signed with initials lower right: AS
bears inscription verso: Dated by/ Oliver Streeton/ Early 1900s

Provenance:
Mr John Bryan, Melbourne (inscribed verso)
Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 12 April 1989, lot 1330
Private collection
Sotheby's, Sydney, 24 November 1991, lot 356
Private collection, Melbourne
Art Index, Sydney
Private collection, Sydney

Estimate: $50000 - 70000

A Summer Field, painted by Arthur Streeton after his arrival in England in May 1897, invites comparison with one of the artist’s most famous paintings, his Golden Summer, Eaglemont 1889.1 Both paintings abundantly display Streeton’s skills as a painter, and show Streeton’s lifelong affinity with the subject of the landscape in summer. The season might be said to reflect Streeton’s disposition and the era in which he worked; it is the season for a clarity of vision, the season also implies harvest, fruitfulness, heat that is almost debilitating and, owing to Streeton’s natural facility in his medium, it contains a subtle suggestion of a poet’s effortless languor.

The subject had always engaged Streeton. Amongst his earliest works, his 1886 Australian December we see a remarkably polished, fully mature work by an artist not yet 20 years of age. Streeton further honed his style at Heidelberg, Templestowe and duly Sydney.

With his arrival in England, Streeton soon made his way to the open country to produce one of his finest summer landscapes, Sussex Harvest 1898, now in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. At just 30 years of age and the possessor of a highly developed technique, and veteran of a successful career trajectory in the admittedly parochial confines of the Australian art world, he sought to try his luck in the ‘centre of the empire’.

London & England what a mighty thing it all is… London seems even too large & almost beyond the management of the capable men now directing it – the rate of its growth increases each day - its wealth stupendous.2

Streeton could hardly have expected the London art world to fall at his feet. Here were prosperity, strident cosmopolitan life at a high pitch, and artistic competition from local artists with hundreds of years of tradition behind them as well as wonderful museums, not to mention distracting and unsettling tradition-busting modernist trends from France. Streeton stuck to his guns. The changes that occurred in his style are essentially superficial, indicating that he was open to augmenting his style of working but only up to a point. Impressionism, already part of his program since his acquaintance with Tom Roberts (1856-1931), the 9x5 exhibition and the success of the Heidelberg School artists in general, was now  modified with direct experience of actual works by the new French artists through landmark exhibitions in London. While great English names of the recent past,  John Constable (1776-1837), Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) and J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) must have presented Streeton with realisation that the challenges before a young artist trying to find his way were great. The poetic overlay and virtuoso brushwork remained unchanged, and he gradually established a circle of local collectors, while never failing to enjoy support from his patrons in Australia.

Two events of his English years made a more significant impact. His 1907 marriage to Nora Clench and more particularly the couple’s trip to Venice, a honeymoon which Streeton seems to have treated more like a work project; and then in 1918 his commission as a War artist. While Venice placed Streeton emphatically into a context of an important artistic heritage, the paintings he produced there are furthest removed from his roots and his disposition. The war paintings also demand to be seen as a distinctive separate chapter in his career. The circumstances of their production seem to have brought out the best in the artist. Distinguished by a level of commitment, a high work ethic and a sense of duty, they are also amongst his most adventurous artistically.

The years in England proved a challenge but ultimately confirmed his style and character as an artist and in 1923 Streeton emerged from the experience ready to return to Australia, and to resume his place at the head of the Australian School of painters and take up again the landscape shown under the hot sun of an Australian summer.

Footnotes

1. This painting hangs in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, with significant preparatory studies at the Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, and a remarkable smaller work, Impression for Golden Summer, was sold by Smith & Singer, Sydney, 12 April 2022, lot 24
2. Arthur Streeton letter to Tom Roberts 8 January 1901, in Galbally, A., & Gray, A. (eds), Letters from Smike: The Letters of Arthur Streeton 1890-1943, Oxford University Press, Melbourne ,1989, p.85, quoted in Tunnicliffe, W. (ed), Streeton, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2020, p.172

Tim Abdallah
Tim Abdallah is former Head of Art, Menzies Art Brands. Following studies at Monash and Melbourne Universities, he was with Christie’s, London before operating his own galleries in Melbourne and Cologne, Germany. He is a freelance consultant, writer and valuer.

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