Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton (8 April 1867 – 1 September 1943) was an Australian
landscape
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...
painter and a leading member of the
Heidelberg School, also known as
Australian Impressionism.
Early life
Streeton was born in
Mount Moriac, Victoria, south-west of
Geelong
Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung language, Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in Victoria, Australia, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River (Victo ...
, on 8 April 1867, the fourth child of Charles Henry and Mary (née Johnson) Streeton. His family moved to the
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
suburb of
Richmond in 1874. His parents were English migrants who had met on their voyage to Australia in 1854.
["Streeton, Sir Arthur Ernest (1867–1943),"](_blank)
''Australian Dictionary of Biography Online'' In 1882, Streeton commenced art studies with
George Folingsby at the
National Gallery School
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.
It is also referred to as the 'National Gallery S ...
.
[Reid, John B. (1977). ''Australian Artists at War: Compiled from the Australian War Memorial Collection.'' Volume 1, p. 16.]
In 1885, Streeton exhibited works for the first time with the
Victorian Academy of Art. He found employment as an apprentice lithographer under
Charles Troedel.
[Galbally, Ann E. Galbally. (1990)]
"Streeton, Sir Arthur Ernest (1867–1943),"
'' Australian Dictionary of Biography Online''
Career

During the summer of 1886–87, Streeton, aged nineteen, first befriended
Tom Roberts
Thomas William Roberts (8 March 185614 September 1931) was an English-born Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism.
After studying in Melbourne, he travelled to Europe i ...
and
Frederick McCubbin while painting ''en plein air'' at
Mentone Beach. The pair greatly admired Streeton's work and invited him to join them at artists' camps they had established in both Mentone and
Box Hill. They were later joined by
Charles Conder, beginning a two-year period of close creative companionship, and forming the core group of what became known as the
Heidelberg School movement, later also called Australian impressionism. Streeton's work rapidly improved during this period, and by 1888 he was widely considered one of Victoria's most gifted young painters.

Streeton was exhibiting and perhaps painting in the studio of his friend Roberts at
Grosvenor Chambers,
Collins Street by May 1888.
Eaglemont camp, Heidelberg
In the
summer drought of 1888, Streeton travelled by train to the attractive agricultural and grazing suburb of
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...
, 11 km north-east of Melbourne's city centre. He intended to walk the remaining distance to the site where
Louis Buvelot
Louis Buvelot (3 March 1814 – 30 May 1888), born Abram-Louis Buvelot, was a Swiss landscape painter who lived 17 years in Brazil, and following 5 years back in Switzerland, stayed 23 years in Australia, where he influenced the Heidelberg Sch ...
painted his 1866 work ''Summer afternoon near Templestowe'', which Streeton considered "the first fine landscape painted in Victoria".
[Streeton, Arthur (16 October 1934)]
"Eaglemont in the Eighties: Beginnings of Art in Australia"
'' The Argus''. On the return journey to Heidelberg, wet canvas in hand, Streeton met Charles Davies, brother-in-law of friend and fellow ''plein air'' painter
David Davies. Charles gave him "artistic possession" of an abandoned homestead atop the summit of
Mount Eagle estate, offering spectacular views across the
Yarra Valley
The Yarra Valley is a region in Victoria, Australia, centred around the Yarra River. Known for its natural beauty, agricultural significance, and as one of Australia's prominent wine-producing areas, the valley stretches from the upper reache ...
to the
Dandenongs.
For Streeton,
Eaglemont (as it became known) was the ideal working environment—a reasonably isolated rural location accessible by public transport. The house itself could be seen by visitors as they arrived at
Heidelberg railway station.
Streeton spent the first few nights at Eaglemont alone with the estate's tenant farmer Jack Whelan (who appears in Streeton's "pioneer" painting ''The selector's hut (Whelan on the log)'', 1890), and slept upon the floor, the rooms being bare of furniture. Of his first few nights at the house, Streeton said it was "creaking and ghostly. A long dark corridor seemed full of past visions, and out of doors a blurred rich blackness against the sharp brilliance of the
Southern Cross
CRUX is a lightweight x86-64 Linux distribution targeted at experienced Linux users and delivered by a tar.gz-based package system with BSD-style initscripts. It is not based on any other Linux distribution. It also utilizes a ports system to ...
... But tobacco and wine weighed healthily against the darkness".
He descended the hill daily to Heidelberg village for meals before jaunting into the bush with a
billycan of milk and
swag of paints and canvases. The first artists to paint with Streeton at Eaglemont were the National Gallery students Aby Altson and
John Llewellyn Jones, followed by
John Mather and
Walter Withers. Like Streeton, Withers painted from nature amidst suburban bush around Melbourne, employing earthy colours with loose, impressionistic brushstrokes. By the end of 1888, he became a weekend visitor to the camp.
About the same time, Streeton met the artist
Charles Conder, who travelled down from Sydney in October 1888 at the invitation of
Tom Roberts
Thomas William Roberts (8 March 185614 September 1931) was an English-born Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism.
After studying in Melbourne, he travelled to Europe i ...
. One year Streeton's junior, Conder was already a committed ''plein airist'', having been influenced by the painterly techniques of expatriate impressionist
Girolamo Nerli. Conder and Roberts joined Streeton at Eaglemont in January 1889 and helped make some modest improvements to the house. Despite austere living conditions, Streeton felt content: "Surrounded by the loveliness of the new landscape, with heat, drought, and flies, and hard pressed for the necessaries of life, we worked hard, and were a happy trio."
Streeton and Conder quickly became friends and influenced one another's art. Their shared love of
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...
n poet
Adam Lindsay Gordon's lyrical verse is revealed in the titles of some of their Eaglemont paintings, including Streeton's romantic
gloaming work ''Above us the great grave sky'' (1890, taken from Gordon's poem "Doubtful Dreams"). Later, critics would describe some of the pair's Eaglemont paintings as companion pieces, as both artists often painted the same views and subjects using a high-keyed "gold and blue" palette, which Streeton considered "nature's scheme of colour in Australia".
Two of Streeton's best-known works were painted during this period—''
Golden Summer, Eaglemont'' (1889) and ''Still glides the stream, and shall for ever glide'' (1890)—each a sunlit pastoral scene of golden-paddocked plains stretching to the distant blue
Corhanwarrabul. In 1891,
Arthur Merric and
Emma Minnie of the
Boyd artistic dynasty took ''Golden Summer, Eaglemont'' to Europe where it became the first painting by an Australian-born artist to be exhibited at the
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...
, London, and was awarded a ''Mention honourable'' at the 1892
Paris Salon
The Salon (), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world. At the ...
.
Sydney and travels inland

On 2 June 1890, in the wake of an economic depression in Melbourne, Streeton sailed to Sydney, and initially stayed there with his sister in the suburb of Summer Hill. He soon relocated to
Curlew Camp, a ''plein air'' artists' camp on Sydney Harbour, where he painted many views of his natural surroundings and was visited by a number of artists, including
Julian Ashton and
Albert Henry Fullwood, who stayed at the camp for extended periods.
Tom Roberts
Thomas William Roberts (8 March 185614 September 1931) was an English-born Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism.
After studying in Melbourne, he travelled to Europe i ...
later joined him also, continuing their artistic friendship. From 1891, Streeton began travelling widely in rural New South Wales. As well as painting scenes of Sydney Harbour and Coogee, and urban scenes of Sydney, it was during the early to mid-1890s that he painted some of his major rural landscapes, including the ''
Hawkesbury River
The Hawkesbury River, or Hawkesbury-Nepean River (Dharug language, Dharug: Dyarubbin) is a river located northwest of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Hawkesbury River and its associated main tributary, the Nepean River, almost encircle ...
'' series and
'''Fire's on.
Sydney Harbour inspired many of Streeton's most poetic Symbolist paintings, a number of which infuse the Australian landscape with mythological subjects. The city also spurred his interest in the decorative arts as he painted on fans, furniture, musical instruments and other objects. The influence of Japanese art, such as ''
kakemono'' (hung scrolls), is evidenced in the extreme vertical formats and compositional elements he favoured around this time.
In 1893, Streeton wrote in Sydney's ''Daily Telegraph'' criticising a proposal by a mining company to develop a colliery on the shores of Sydney Harbor, which would necessitate the cutting down of a great many gum trees. His letter, which came to be known as "Streeton's shriek", read in part:
The letter helped raise public alarm over the proposal, and in 1895, Streeton painted ''Cremorne pastoral'', his largest harbour composition, as "an elegiac image of what
ebelieved would be lost" if the project went head. When it went on exhibition later that year, the Art Gallery of New South Wales acquired the work and publicly endorsed Streeton's protests. The government, in the face of mounting backlash, was forced to abandon the mining project. ''Cremorne pastorals status as an environmental protest painting is considered groundbreaking in Australian art history.
File:Arthur Streeton McMahon's Point Ferry 1890.jpg, ''McMahon's Point Ferry'', 1890, private collection
File:Arthur Streeton - Fire's on - Google Art Project.jpg, '' Fire's on'', 1891, Art Gallery of New South Wales
File:Arthur Streeton Oblivion.jpeg, ''Oblivion'', 1892, private collection
File:Arthur Streeton - Cremorne pastoral - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Cremorne pastoral'', 1895, Art Gallery of New South Wales
Overseas and life in England

In 1897 Streeton sailed for London on the ''Polynesian'', stopping at
Port Said
Port Said ( , , ) is a port city that lies in the northeast Egypt extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, straddling the west bank of the northern mouth of the Suez Canal. The city is the capital city, capital of the Port S ...
before continuing on via Cairo and
Naples
Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...
. He held an exhibition at the
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...
in 1900 and became a member of the
Chelsea Arts Club
Chelsea Arts Club is a private members' club at 143 Old Church Street in Chelsea, London with a membership of over 4,000, including artists, sculptors, architects, writers, designers, actors, musicians, photographers, and filmmakers. The club wa ...
in 1903. Although he had developed a considerable reputation in Australia, he failed to achieve the same success in England. His trips to London were financed by the sales of his paintings at home in Australia.
His time in England reinforced a strong sense of patriotism towards the
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
and, like many, anticipated the
coming war with Germany with some enthusiasm. In 1906, Streeton returned to Australia and completed some paintings at
Mount Macedon
Mount Macedon ( ; or ) is a dormant volcano that is part of the Macedon Ranges of the Great Dividing Range, located in the Central Highlands (Victoria), Central Highlands region of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. The mountain has a ...
in February 1907 while staying with his patrons the Pinschofs at Hohe Warte. These included the notable five feet by three feet Australia Felix (a view from Mt. Toorong) and a number of other smaller paintings.
Streeton returned to London in October. He married
Esther Leonora Clench, a Canadian violinist, in 1908 and paintings done during their honeymoon in Venice in September that year, including ''
The Grand Canal'', were exhibited in Australia in July 1909 as "Arthur Streeton's Venice". In Australia again in April 1914 he held exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne and went back to England in early 1915.
War artist

Along with other members of the
Chelsea Arts Club
Chelsea Arts Club is a private members' club at 143 Old Church Street in Chelsea, London with a membership of over 4,000, including artists, sculptors, architects, writers, designers, actors, musicians, photographers, and filmmakers. The club wa ...
, including
Tom Roberts
Thomas William Roberts (8 March 185614 September 1931) was an English-born Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism.
After studying in Melbourne, he travelled to Europe i ...
, he joined the
Royal Army Medical Corps
The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) was a specialist corps in the British Army which provided medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace.
On 15 November 2024, the corps was amalgamated with the Royal Army De ...
(
British Army
The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
) at the age of 48. He worked at the 3rd London General Hospital in
Wandsworth
Wandsworth Town () is a district of south London, within the London Borough of Wandsworth southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.
Toponymy
Wandsworth takes its name ...
and reached the rank of
corporal
Corporal is a military rank in use by the armed forces of many countries. It is also a police rank in some police services. The rank is usually the lowest ranking non-commissioned officer. In some militaries, the rank of corporal nominally corr ...
.

Streeton was made an Australian Official War Artist with the
Australian Imperial Force, holding the rank of Honorary Lieutenant, and he travelled to France on 14 May 1918 and was attached to the
2nd Division, receiving his movement order on 8 May 1918. He worked in France, with a break in August, until October 1918. Expected by the Commonwealth to produce sketches and drawings that were "descriptive", Streeton concentrated on the landscape of the scenes of war and did not attempt to convey the human suffering. Unlike more famous
military artists who depicted the definitive moments of battle, Streeton produced "military still life", capturing the everyday moments of the war. Streeton explained what was at that time an unconventional point of view – a perspective which was based in experience:
Two paintings from this period, ''Villers Bretonneux'' (1918) and ''Boulogne'' (1918), are in the collection of the
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most import ...
.
Later years
After the war, Streeton resumed painting in the
Grampians
The Grampian Mountains () is one of the three major mountain ranges in Scotland, that together occupy about half of Scotland. The other two ranges are the Northwest Highlands and the Southern Uplands. The Grampian range extends northeast to so ...
and
Dandenong Ranges. Streeton built a house on five acres (20,000m
2) at
Olinda
Olinda () is a historic city in Pernambuco, Brazil, in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region. It is located on the country's northeastern Atlantic Ocean coast, in the Recife metropolitan area, Metropolitan Region of Recife, the state ca ...
in the Dandenongs where he continued to paint, though in 1936 he complained that it 'tends to interfere with the gardening,' and only produced art for 'a couple of months in the year,' though he was then preparing a Sydney exhibition in time for his 70th birthday.
Streeton won the
Wynne Prize
The Wynne Prize is an Australian landscape painting or figure sculpture art prize. As one of Australia's longest-running art prizes, it was established in 1897 from the bequest of Richard Wynne. Now held concurrently with the Sir John Sulman Prize ...
in 1928 with ''Afternoon Light, Goulburn Valley''. He was an
art critic
An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...
for ''
The Argus'' from 1929 to 1935 and in 1937 was
knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity.
The concept of a knighthood ...
ed for services to the arts.
Streeton died in September 1943 and is buried at
Ferntree Gully cemetery.
Legacy
Streeton Drive, a main thoroughfare in
Weston Creek is named after Sir Arthur, as is Streeton Primary School, in the Melbourne suburb of
Yallambie.
There is also a memorial for Streeton just outside Geelong, Victoria.
In 2008, three expatriate Australian classical musicians living in Geneva, Switzerland founded a
piano trio
A piano trio is a group of piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello, or a piece of music written for such a group. It is one of the most common forms found in European classical music, classical chamber music. The term can also ...
they named the
Streeton Trio after the painter.
Streeton's works appear in many major Australian galleries and museums, including the
National Gallery of Australia and state galleries, and the
Australian War Memorial
The Australian War Memorial (AWM) is a national war memorial, war museum, museum and archive dedicated to all Australians who died as a result of war, including peacekeeping duties. The AWM is located in Campbell, Australian Capital Territory, C ...
. In September 2015, Streeton's Coogee clifftop landscape ''
Blue Pacific'' (1890) became the first painting by an Australian artist, and only the second painting by a Western artist outside Europe, to hang in the permanent collection of the
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current di ...
, London. It sits alongside major impressionist works by
Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, ; ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of Impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his ...
and
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French Modernism, modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism (art movement), R ...
.
Prices

Streeton's paintings are amongst the most collectible of Australian artists and attracted high prices during his lifetime. ''Golden Summer, Eaglemont'' sold for around 1000
guineas
The guinea (; commonly abbreviated gn., or gns. in plural) was a coin, minted in Great Britain between 1663 and 1814, that contained approximately one-quarter of an ounce of gold. The name came from the Guinea region in West Africa, from where m ...
in 1924 and in 1995 it was bought in a private sale by the
National Gallery of Australia for
A$3.5 million, both times setting a sales record for an Australian painting. In 1985, ''Settler's Camp'' sold at auction for A$800,000 and this remained the record auction price for Streeton's work until 23 May 2005, when his 1890 painting, ''Sunlight Sweet, Coogee'', was sold for A$2.04 million (A$1.853 million before tax), becoming only the second painting by an Australian artist to exceed the A$2 million mark at auction (after
Frederick McCubbin's 1892 work ''Bush Idyll'', which sold for A$2.3 million in 1998). The painting was part of the
Foster's Group
Foster's Group Pty. Ltd. was an Australian beer group with interests in brewing and soft drinks, known for Foster's Lager, now called Carlton & United Breweries since the company was renamed in 2011. Foster's was founded in 1888 in Melbourne, ...
collection and was sold at auction by
Sotheby's
Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
. That record was eclipsed when, on 21 April 2021, Streeton's ''
The Grand Canal'' (1908) was auctioned in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
for A$3.068 million.
Gallery
Arthur Streeton - At Templestowe - Google Art Project.jpg, ''At Templestowe'', 1889, Art Gallery of South Australia
File:Sunlight Sweet Coogee Arthur Streeton.jpg, ''Sunlight Sweet, Coogee'', 1890, private collection
File:Arthur Streeton Point Wharf 1893.jpg, ''The Point Wharf, Mosman Bay'', 1893, National Gallery of Australia
File:Arthur Streeton Redfern railway station.jpg, ''The Railway Station, Redfern'', 1893, Art Gallery of New South Wales
File:Ariadne 1898 by Arthur Streeton.jpg, ''Ariadne'', 1895, National Gallery of Australia
File:Arthur Streeton - Manly Beach (1895).JPG, ''Manly Beach'', 1895, Bendigo Art Gallery
File:Arthur Streeton - The spirit of the drought - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Spirit of the Drought'', 1895, National Gallery of Australia
File:Arthur Streeton Purple 1896.jpg, ''‘ The purple noon's transparent might’'', 1896, National Gallery of Victoria
File:The Path to Podge Newton's.jpg, ''The Path to Podge Newton's'', 1895, private collection
File:Streeton From My Camp 1896.jpg, ''From My Camp'', 1896, Art Gallery of New South Wales
File:Arthur Streeton - (House builders, Cairo) - Google Art Project.jpg, ''House builders, Cairo'', 1897, National Gallery of Australia
References
External links
Artist's footsteps – Arthur StreetonArthur Streetonat the
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most import ...
Arthur Streeton at Australian Art*
Dictionary of Australian Art, Arthur Streeton;Images
The domes of St. Mark's (1908)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Streeton, Arthur
1867 births
1943 deaths
19th-century Australian painters
19th-century Australian male artists
20th-century Australian painters
20th-century Australian male artists
Australian Knights Bachelor
Australian landscape painters
Australian people of English descent
Australian war artists
Heidelberg School
Members of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters
Orientalist painters
People from Geelong
World War I artists
Wynne Prize winners
British Army personnel of World War I
Royal Army Medical Corps soldiers
Australian military personnel of World War I
Australian Army officers
Australian male painters
People from Richmond, Victoria
National Gallery of Victoria Art School alumni
Military personnel from Victoria (state)
People from the Colony of Victoria