National Gallery of Victoria Art School

Last updated

National Gallery of Victoria Art School
TypePrivate
Established1867;157 years ago (1867)
Location
Melbourne
,
Victoria
,
Australia

The National Gallery of Victoria Art School, associated with the National Gallery of Victoria, was a private fine arts college founded in 1867 and was Australia's leading art school of 50 years. [1]

Contents

It is also referred to as the 'National Gallery School' ‘National Gallery Art School’, ‘National Gallery School of Art’ and ‘Victorian National Gallery School of Art’. Official correspondence commencing from the 1950s is headed ‘National Gallery of Victoria Art School’ and in McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, [1] it is abbreviated 'NGC School'.

It was the leading centre for academic art training in Australia until about 1910. [1] Among its luminaries, the school was headed by Sir William Dargie in 1946–53, [2] John Brack from 1962–68, and Lenton Parr from 1968 to its absorption into the newly created Victorian College of the Arts. [3]

History

National Gallery of Victoria Art School students 1896 National Gallery of Victoria Art School students 1896.jpg
National Gallery of Victoria Art School students 1896
Melbourne National Gallery School life class in 1935 (L-R) Phyl Waterhouse, Alannah Coleman, Charles Bush, Jean Mcinnes and Miss Eastwood (posed not in front of their own canvases). On the walls; works by Hugh Ramsay, John Longstaff, Max Meldrum, James Quinn, Isaac Cohen and Charles Wheeler. Taken for Table Talk magazine NGV School 1935.jpg
Melbourne National Gallery School life class in 1935 (L-R) Phyl Waterhouse, Alannah Coleman, Charles Bush, Jean Mcinnes and Miss Eastwood (posed not in front of their own canvases). On the walls; works by Hugh Ramsay, John Longstaff, Max Meldrum, James Quinn, Isaac Cohen and Charles Wheeler. Taken for Table Talk magazine
A group of students at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School with animal costumes c. 1930 A group of students at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School with animal costumes.jpg
A group of students at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School with animal costumes c. 1930

The State Library of Victoria, a public library, opened in Melbourne in 1859, and from 1861 it housed a Museum of Art and a Picture Gallery, opened in 1864, both situated alongside the Public Library on Swanston Street between LaTrobe and Russell Streets. Its art collection was named the National Gallery of Victoria in 1869.

At the suggestion of Thomas Clark, [1] who was to become teacher of drawing, a National Gallery Art School, School of Design was formed and started enrolling students in June 1867, then was divided into two schools in 1870. Eugene von Guerard, then 60 years old, was appointed Instructor of Painting and Master of the School of Art. Thomas Clark was appointed Instructor and Master of the School of Design which prepared students for the School of Painting, a separate institution. In 1887 the School of Design became the Drawing School. By the turn of the century, its teaching largely followed that of the Academies of Europe.

Students enrolling were required to demonstrate only rudimentary artistic skill and came from all over the country, paying a very reasonable ten shillings per term (a value of A$40–50 in 2022) in the 1920s. They commenced with drawing in charcoal from plaster casts, before proceeding to working from the nude model. The museum provided classes in natural history, and students benefitted from ready access to its art collections. Prizes were instituted in 1887 and gradually increased in number and value, the most desirable being the Traveling Scholarship which was later the Keith and Elisabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship. [1]

After World War II, ex- servicemen and women training under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme (CRTS) were accommodated in a third department. By 1953 the School had reverted to a Drawing School and a Painting School. Among its alumni are counted many of the most prominent Australian artists. [4]

Merger creating the Victorian College of the Arts

The National Gallery Art School ceased as an independent institution in 1973 when it became the foundation school of the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) which became an affiliated college of the University of Melbourne in July 1991. On 1 January 1992 an Act of Parliament brought the components of former Prahran College, Victoria College's Prahran Campus and Prahran College of TAFE, under the auspices of Swinburne University of Technology, with the only tertiary courses, Graphics and Industrial Design, remaining on the campus, all others being moved to Deakin University. Prahran Fine Art under Gareth Sansom was relocated and amalgamated with the Victorian College of the Arts, where the next Dean of Art was William Kelly. [5]

As the VCA was not already split into departments, it was the Prahran heads who were given such, newly created, roles in several cases; with Pam Hallandal becoming head of drawing (then retiring at the end of 1993); head of ceramics was Greg Wain, previously head of ceramics at Prahran; Victor Majzner likewise became head of painting at the VCA; Prahran Graduate, Christopher Köller was head of their new department of Photography. Printmaking had been a separate Department at VCA before the merger, the head being a Prahran graduate, Allan Mitelman, who was replaced by John Scurry, head of printmaking at Prahran. Jock Clutterbuck (VCA) and David Wilson (Prahran) alternated the role of head of the newly merged Department of Sculpture. [5]

Faculty and alumni

Heads of the school and teachers of painting

Teachers of drawing, assistant heads of school

Alumni

The School's graduates and former students, with their dates of attendance, include:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Beckwith McInnes</span> Australian portrait painter

William Beckwith McInnes was an Australian portrait painter, winner of the Archibald Prize seven times for his traditional style paintings. He was acting-director at the National Gallery of Victoria and an instructor in its art school.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick McCubbin</span> Australian artist (1855-1917)

Frederick McCubbin was an Australian artist, art teacher and prominent member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Roberts</span> Australian artist (1856–1931)

Thomas William Roberts was an English-born Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Meldrum</span> Australian painter

Duncan Max Meldrum was a Scottish-born Australian artist and art teacher, best known as the founder of Australian tonalism, a representational painting style that became popular in Melbourne during the interwar period. He also won fame for his portrait work, winning the prestigious Archibald Prize for portraiture in 1939 and 1940.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clara Southern</span> Australian artist (1860–1940)

Clara Southern was an Australian artist associated with the Heidelberg School, also known as Australian Impressionism. She was active between the years 1883 and her death in 1940. Physically, Southern was tall with reddish fair hair, and was nicknamed 'Panther' because of her lithe beauty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan McLeod McCulloch</span> Australian art critic, art historian and artist (1907–1992)

Alan McLeod McCulloch AO was one of Australia's foremost art critics for more than 60 years, an art historian and gallery director, cartoonist, and painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Mather (artist)</span> Scottish-Australian plein-air painter and etcher

John Mather was a Scottish-Australian plein-air painter and etcher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dora Wilson</span> British-born Australian artist

Dora Lynnell Wilson was a British-born Australian artist, best known in her adopted country of Australia for her etchings and street scenes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isabel May Tweddle</span> Australian painter

Isabel May (Diana) Tweddle (1875–1945), was an Australian painter. She was a member of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors and the Twenty Melbourne Painters Society Inc.

Dora Beatrice Serle (1875–1968), was an Australian painter. She was the president of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors from 1933 to 1934.

The Prahran College of Advanced Education, formerly Prahran College of Technology, was a late-secondary and tertiary institution with a business school, a trade school, and a multi-disciplinary art school that dated back to the 1860s, populated by instructors and students who were among Australia’s significant artists, designers and performers.

Sedon Galleries was a commercial art gallery in Melbourne, Australia, representing Australian traditional, impressionist and post-impressionist painting and prints. It operated from 1925 to 1959.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arnold Shore</span> Twentieth-century Australian artist, teacher and art critic

Arnold Joseph Victor Shore was an Australian painter, teacher and critic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allan Jordan</span> Mid-twentieth-century Australian painter, printmaker and teacher

Allan Holder Jordan (1898–1982) was an Australian painter, designer, printmaker and teacher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold Herbert (artist)</span> Australian painter (1891–1945)

Harold Brocklebank Herbert (1891–1945) was an early 20th century Australian painter and printmaker, an illustrator and cartoonist. A traditionalist, as an art teacher he promoted representational painting, and as a critic was an influential detractor of modernism. He was the first war artist to be appointed for Australia in the Second World War, serving for 6 months with the Australian Infantry Forces in Egypt in 1941 and in the Middle East in 1942.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Courier</span> Twentieth-century Australian Modernist printmaker, painter and teacher

Jack Courier (1915–2007), a.k.a. John, was an Australian Modernist printmaker, painter and teacher.

Alexander Colquhoun was a Scottish-born Australian painter, illustrator and art critic.

The Australian Academy of Art was a conservative Australian government-authorised art organisation which operated for ten years between 1937 and 1946 and staged annual exhibitions. Its demise resulted from opposition by Modernist artists, especially those associated with the Contemporary Art Society, though the influence of the Academy continued into the 1960s.

Allan Mitelman is an Australian painter, printmaker and art teacher who arrived in Australia in 1953.

Louis Frederick McCubbin, only ever known as "Louis McCubbin", was an Australian war artist, landscape painter and art gallery director.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 McCulloch, Alan; McCulloch, Susan (1994). "Appendix 8". The Encyclopedia of Australian Art. Allen & Unwin. p. 864. ISBN   1-86373-315-9.
  2. ↑ "St Kilda Park Primary School". Skhs.org.au. 2 October 2002. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
  3. ↑ "History". About the VCA. Victorian College of the Arts. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  4. ↑ Fennessy, Kathleen (2007). A people learning : colonial Victorians and their public museums, 1860-1880. Australian Scholarly. ISBN   978-1-74097-175-1. OCLC   690490298.
  5. 1 2 Buckrich, Judith Raphael (2007). Design for living : a history of 'Prahran Tech'. Windsor, Vic.: Prahran Mechanics' Institute Press. ISBN   978-0-9756000-8-5. OCLC   225572527.
  6. ↑ Galbally, Ann E. (1969). "Campbell, Oswald Rose (1820–1887)". In Nairn, N.B.; Serle, A.G. (eds.). Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 3. Canberra: Melbourne University Press. ISBN   9780522839098. OCLC   223565494.
  7. ↑ Westbrook, Eric, Birth of a Gallery, Macmillans Australia, 1968, p. 79.
  8. ↑ Hoff, Ursula, "Annois, Leonard Lloyd (Len) (1906–1966)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 29 August 2022
  9. ↑ Cooke, Glenn R. (2007). "Barker, Caroline (1894–1988)". Australian Dictionary of Biography . Archived from the original on 11 March 2018. Retrieved 11 March 2018.
  10. ↑ "Rex Irwin Art Dealer – Peter Booth Biography". Rexirwin.com. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
  11. ↑ Smith, Sue (1999). "Arthur Boyd (1920–1999): An obituary". Grafico Topico. Retrieved 19 May 2013.
  12. ↑ Carter, Nanette, "Burke, Frances Mary (1904–1994)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 29 August 2022
  13. ↑ Cannon, Michael (1979). "Brodzky, Horace Ascher (1885–1969)", in Australian Dictionary of Biography online, accessed 28 September 2015.
  14. ↑ Lindsay, Frances, "Carter, Norman St Clair (1875–1963)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 29 August 2022
  15. ↑ Nott, R. E., "Cobb, Victor Ernest (1876–1945)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 29 August 2022
  16. ↑ Perry, Peter W. "Colquhoun, Archibald Douglas (Archie) (1894–1983)". Australian Dictionary of Biography . Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISSN   1833-7538 . Retrieved 29 August 2022.
  17. ↑ White, Margaret H., "Derham, Frances Alexandra (Frankie) (1894–1987)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 29 August 2022
  18. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 McCulloch, Alan; McCulloch, Susan; McCulloch Childs, Emily (2006). The New McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art (4th ed.). Aus Art Editions in association with The Miegunyah Press. ISBN   9780522853179.
  19. ↑ Colligan, Mimi, "Florance, Sheila Mary (1916–1991)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 29 August 2022
  20. ↑ McPhee, John (1986). "Grieve, Rachel (1885–1977)". In Ritchie, John (ed.). Australian dictionary of biography. Volume 14. 1891-1939, Di-Kel. Vol. 10. Melbourne University Press. ISBN   978-1-76046-413-4. OCLC   152651099.[ verification needed ]
  21. ↑ McCulloch, Alan; McCulloch, Susan; McCulloch Childs, Emily (2006). The New McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art (4th ed.). Aus Art Editions in association with The Miegunyah Press. ISBN   9780522853179.
  22. ↑ Mendelssohn, Joanna (2012). "Clewin Harcourt". Design and Art Australia Online.
  23. ↑ Wilkins, Lola (1995). "Sheila Hawkins". Design and Art Australia Online.
  24. ↑ Serle, Geoffrey, "Jageurs, Morgan Peter (1862–1932)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 29 August 2022
  25. ↑ Fry, Gavin, "Lawlor, Adrian (1889–1969)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 1 September 2022
  26. ↑ Kerr, Joan. "George Luke". Design and Art Australia Online.
  27. ↑ "Art of Fredric McCubbin". Web-Arts. 20 December 1917. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
  28. ↑ Gray, Anne, "McCubbin, Louis Frederick (1890–1952)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 1 September 2022
  29. ↑ Kerr, Joan (1996). "Wilfred Arthur McCulloch". Design and Art Australia Online.
  30. ↑ "Max Meldrum Facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Max Meldrum". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
  31. ↑ Wookey, Ann, "Miller, Godfrey Clive (1893–1964)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 29 August 2022
  32. ↑ Butler, Roger (1986). "Moffitt, Ernest Edward (1871–1899)". In Nairn, Bede; Serle, Geoffrey (eds.). Australian dictionary of biography. Volume 10. 1891-1939, Lat-Ner. Vol. 10. Melbourne University Press. ISBN   0-522-84327-1. OCLC   152651099.
  33. ↑ "Alan Moore". Australian War Memorial. Retrieved 27 September 2015.
  34. ↑ Mendelssohn, Joanna (1999). "Violet M. McInnes b. 1892 : Also known as Violet Musgrave". Design and Art Australia Online.
  35. ↑ Serle, Percival (1949). "Newbury, Albert Ernest". Dictionary of Australian Biography . Sydney: Angus & Robertson . Retrieved 14 October 2009.
  36. ↑ "George W. Neville". Design and Art Australia Online.
  37. ↑ "Art News | Sidney Nolan: A New Retrospective at Queensland Art Gallery". Art Knowledge News. 9 October 2010. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
  38. ↑ Erickson, Dorothy (2010). "Ernest Sidney Philpot b. 1906 : Artist (Painter), Designer (Graphic Designer), Artist (Painter)". Design and Art Australia Online.
  39. ↑ Dixon, Robert, "Porteous, Richard Sydney (1896–1963)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 29 August 2022
  40. ↑ Pigot, John (2000). Hilda Rix Nicholas: Her Life and Art. Carlton South, Victoria: The Miegunyah Press at Melbourne University Press. p. 6. ISBN   0-522-84890-7.
  41. ↑ Mackenzie, Andrew, "Rowell, John Thomas Nightingale (1894–1973)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 29 August 2022
  42. ↑ Mackenzie, Andrew, "Rowell, William Nicholas (Will) (1898–1946)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 2 September 2022
  43. ↑ "Lot 15: ARTHUR STREETON 1867–1943 'SUNLIGHT SWEET', COOGEE, Sotheby's". Artfact. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
  44. ↑ "Biography: Fred Williams". Archived from the original on 18 June 2009. Retrieved 29 June 2009.

37°48′36″S144°57′53″E / 37.810127°S 144.964857°E / -37.810127; 144.964857

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.