Frederick McCubbin, Artist, Australia
Frederick McCubbin is acknowledged as one of Australia's finest artists.
Frederick's parents Alexander McCubbin and Ann (McWilliam) McCubbin arrived in Australia in 1852, at the height of the gold rush. They set up a bakery in Melbourne. Frederick McCubbin was born in 1855. From a very early age Frederick loved to draw. At the age of 14, on his first job, he was caught sketching in work hours. His employer sacked him. His father then decided Frederick should work with him. Starting in the wee hours of the morning Frederick delivered bread by horse and cart. This was followed by his apprenticeship to a coach builder. In the evenings he took drawing classes at the Carlton Artisan’s School of Design. He later followed his drawing master to the National Gallery School in Melbourne. After his father’s death in 1877, McCubbin returned to the bakery to help his mother and suspended his art studies. However, he was determined to become a painter and a year later at the age of 22, he was able to return to the Gallery School, as a full time student.
McCubbin was intrigued with the tales of the pioneers, the fossickers and adventurers. He was also drawn to other painters who were beginning to portray the everyday hardship of the early settlers who struggled through the harsh terrain of the Australian bush to clear enough land to build a timber hut, graze a few cattle and raise a family.
McCubbin met Tom Roberts in 1885 and with Louis Abrahams they founded the first artists' camp at Housten's farm, Box Hill (Victoria, Australia), which laid the foundations of the Heidelberg School. They recognized that the early Australian artists, newly arrived from the European landscape were superimposing their own views of the green rolling hills of England, turning gum trees into oaks, changing the burnished browns and golds of Australia into a European landscape. Moreover, the first colonists, the settlers, saw themselves as exiles from Britain rather than as ‘Australians’. They saw little beauty in the landscape of their newly adopted country.
These artists had a growing interest in painting the Australian landscape as being something entirely new to British and European eyes. They saw that the Australian landscape provided a wealth of original material and they set out to create an independent, nationalistic art style. They became known for their use of colour and light to reflect the harshness and dryness of the Australian bush, the enormous, lonely spaces and the particular beauty of the landscape. Frederick McCubbin was inspired to paint and capture forever the Australian bush as in The Pioneer (below), depicting a courageous young couple making a new start in a harsh land.
"The Pioneer" 1904 *
"A number of McCubbin’s paintings were of the Australian bush. He preferred melancholy or even tragic themes, and settings which emphasize the tones of the landscape. He was more interested in creating a certain kind of mood than in making a detailed analysis of a particular atmospheric effect."
"He was intensely devoted to his wife, Annie Moriarty, who was a noble and beautiful woman. She posed for nearly all McCubbin's pictures, and she was the model for the centre picture of McCubbin's great triptich, "The Pioneers," which now hangs in the National Gallery." (L.T.Luxton, Argus Camera Supplement, 10 Aug 1920). Penny McColm, grandaughter of Frederick McCubbin, says "The Pioneers" is so huge, I believe Fred dug a ditch to stand in, in order to paint the lower area". McCubbin did many portraits of his family including himself, with one scene including the family business "The Bakery".
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"A Lady in Grey (Portrait of Mrs McCubbin)" 1900*
McCubbin's painting titled "Lost" displaying a young child surrounded by the bushland may have been inspired by a report in May 1885 when a 12 year old young girl was found alive after 3 weeks lost in the bush near Lilydale country, Victoria.
"Lost" 1907*
On leave in 1907, McCubbin travelled to Europe and he found himself enthralled with the French impressionists. This marked a great shift in compositions, his paintings becoming smaller light-filled pure landscapes, with a strong reference to the works of the Englishman, Turner.
Frederick McCubbin taught drawing at the Melbourne National Gallery School from 1886 until his death in 1917.
"F.McCubbin, Self Portrait" c1913*
*(Images temporary until copyright approval from The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne)
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