Charles Edward Conder (24 October 1868 – 9 February 1909)
[ was an English-born painter, ]lithographer
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German ...
and designer. He emigrated to Australia and was a key figure in the Heidelberg School
The Heidelberg School was an Australian art movement of the late 19th century. It has been described as Australian impressionism.
Melbourne art critic Sidney Dickinson coined the term in an 1891 review of works by Arthur Streeton and Walter ...
, arguably the beginning of a distinctively Australian tradition in Western art.
Biography
Birth and early years
Conder was born in Tottenham
Tottenham (, , , ) is a district in north London, England, within the London Borough of Haringey. It is located in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Greater London. Tottenham is centred north-northeast of Charing Cross, ...
, Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...
, the second son, of six children, of James Conder, civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...
and Mary Ann Ayres. He spent several years as a young child in India until the death of his mother (aged 31 years) on 14 May 1873 in Bombay
Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...
, when Charles was four; he was then sent back to England and attended a number of schools including a boarding school at Eastbourne
Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. It is also a non-metropolitan district, local government district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, bor ...
, which he attended from 1877. He left school at 15, and his very religious, non-artistic father, against Charles's natural artistic inclinations, decided that he should follow in his footsteps as a civil engineer.
Australia
In 1884, at the age of 16, he was sent to Sydney
Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
, Australia, where he worked for his uncle, a land surveyor
Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually on the ...
for the New South Wales
New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...
government. However he disliked the work, much preferring to draw the landscape rather than survey it. In 1886, he left the job and became an artist for the '' Illustrated Sydney News'', where he was in the company of other artists such as Albert Henry Fullwood, Frank Mahony and Benjamin Edwin Minns
Benjamin Edwin Minns (17 November 1863 – 21 February 1937), commonly referred to as B. E. Minns, was an Australian watercolourist and black-and-white artist, remembered for his portraits of Aboriginal people.
Minns was born in Dungog, New S ...
. He also joined the Art Society of New South Wales, attended the painting classes of Alfred James Daplyn, and went on ''plein air'' painting excursions with Julian Ashton.[Ursula Hoff,]
Conder, Charles Edward (1868–1909)
, ''Australian Dictionary of Biography
The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...
'', Vol. 3, MUP, 1969, pp 446–447.
Regarded as perhaps his greatest Sydney painting, ''Departure of the Orient – Circular Quay'' (1888) was the culmination of Conder's new mastery of form and brushwork. A dockside scene, it depicts the bustling harbour and ferry berths at Circular Quay
Circular Quay is a harbour, former working port and now international passenger shipping terminal, public piazza and tourism precinct, heritage area, and transport node located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on the northern edge of the ...
in Sydney Cove
Sydney Cove (Eora language, Eora: ) is a bay on the southern shore of Sydney Harbour, one of several harbours in Port Jackson, on the coast of Sydney, New South Wales. Sydney Cove is a focal point for community celebrations, due to its central ...
at the moment when the ''Orient
The Orient is a term referring to the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of the term ''Occident'', which refers to the Western world.
In English, it is largely a meto ...
'' has cast off for her voyage to England. It was quickly purchased by 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 ...
, making it the first of Conder's works to enter a public collection.
Heidelberg School
In Sydney in 1888, Conder met and painted with ''plein airist'' 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 ...
, then visiting from 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 ...
. Later that year, Conder moved to Melbourne to join Roberts and his circle of friends, including painter Arthur Streeton
Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton (8 April 1867 – 1 September 1943) was an Australian landscape painter and a leading member of the Heidelberg School, also known as Australian Impressionism.
Early life
Streeton was born in Mount Moriac, Victoria ...
. The trio shared studios and frequently painted together ''en plein air'' at artists' camps in rural localities around Melbourne, first at Box Hill and, from late 1888, in 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 ...
. They came to be regarded as the core members of the Heidelberg School
The Heidelberg School was an Australian art movement of the late 19th century. It has been described as Australian impressionism.
Melbourne art critic Sidney Dickinson coined the term in an 1891 review of works by Arthur Streeton and Walter ...
movement.
In August 1889, Conder, Streeton, Roberts, Frederick McCubbin
Frederick McCubbin (25 February 1855 – 20 December 1917) was an Australian artist, art teacher and prominent member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism.
Born and raised in Melbourne, Victoria, McCubb ...
and Charles Douglas Richardson staged the 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition in Melbourne, establishing themselves as exponents of an Australian variant of impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
. Conder contributed 46 "impressions" to the show and designed the Symbolist
Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:
*Symbol, any object or sign that represents an idea
Arts
*Artistic symbol, an element of a literary, visual, or other work of art that represents an idea
** Color symbolism, the use of colors within various c ...
and Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...
-inspired catalogue.
Short of cash, the attractive Conder apparently paid off his landlady by sexual means, catching syphilis
Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms depend on the stage it presents: primary, secondary, latent syphilis, latent or tertiary. The prim ...
in the process, which was to plague the later years of his life. During his two years in Melbourne, Conder produced a number of famous Heidelberg School works, including ''Under The Southern Sun''. This painting clearly shows the burning sunlight and desolation that can be inflicted by an Australian drought. While other Heidelberg School artists, born and raised in Australia, imbued many of their works with nationalist
Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
sentiments, Conder, a believer in the credo of art for art's sake
Art for art's sake—the usual English rendering of (), a French slogan from the latter half of the 19th century—is a phrase that expresses the philosophy that 'true' art is utterly independent of all social values and utilitarian functions, b ...
, instead tended to focus on everyday scenes and the pursuit of leisure.
In Melbourne, Conder rekindled his association with G. P. Nerli, an itinerant Italian painter and the bearer of new European influences who has been credited with shaping Conder's development. The extent of the influence has been debated, but the fact of it is undeniable. Like Conder, Nerli was a bon-vivant whose appreciation of the 'dam fine' 'Melbourne girls' survives in a letter to a mutual friend, Percy Spence.
Conder was a fun-loving man who painted with an often humorous touch. While staying with Tom Roberts in his famous Grosvenor Chambers studio, he painted '' A holiday at Mentone'' (1888), which shows men and women at the beach relaxing while clothed from head to foot–the men in suits and hats; the ladies in long, girdled dresses with boots and pretty hats. The man and woman at the front of the painting face away from each other, yet possibly are interested in each other, each watching the other from the corner of their eye. The mood is one of simple elegance and with a relaxed feel, as in the background people are strolling along the beach into the distance. The composition of the painting has possibly been borrowed from a work by Whistler in which a bridge similarly transects the picture.
During his Melbourne residence, Conder stayed with Roberts at his Grosvenor Chambers studio, then moved into Gordon Chambers with Streeton and Richardson. In March 1890, in the lead up to the Victorian Artists' Society
The Victorian Artists Society, which can trace its establishment to 1856 in Melbourne, promotes artistic education, art classes and Art museum, gallery hire art gallery, exhibition in Australia. It was formed in March 1888 when the Victorian Acad ...
's Winter exhibition, the trio staged a show at their Gordon Chambers studio, featuring Heidelberg and "up country" landscapes.
European avant-garde
Conder left Australia in 1890, and spent the rest of his life in Europe, at first in Britain, then France for extended periods. He moved to Paris and studied at the Académie Julian
The () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907). The school was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number and qual ...
, where he befriended several avant-garde artists, including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Count, ''Comte'' Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901), known as Toulouse-Lautrec (), was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator whose immersion in the colour ...
, who painted his portrait and featured him in at least two of his Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge (, ; ) is a cabaret in Paris, on Boulevard de Clichy, at Place Blanche, the intersection of, and terminus of Rue Blanche.
In 1889, the Moulin Rouge was co-founded by Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller, who also owned the Olympia (Par ...
works. Conder became linked to the aesthetic movement
Aestheticism (also known as the aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century that valued the appearance of literature, music, fonts and the arts over their functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be produced to b ...
, mixing with the likes of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...
and Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley ( ; 21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Woodblock printing in Japan, Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. ...
. He was also the subject of portraits by William Rothenstein
Sir William Rothenstein (29 January 1872 – 14 February 1945) was an English painter, printmaker, draughtsman, lecturer, and writer on art. Though he covered many subjects – ranging from landscapes in France to representations of Jewish synag ...
, William Orpen
Major (United Kingdom), Major Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, (27 November 1878 – 29 September 1931) was an Irish artist who mainly worked in London. Orpen was a fine draughtsman and a popular, commercially successful painter of portrai ...
, Jacques-Emile Blanche and Augustus John
Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sarg ...
.
In 1895, Conder designed a room within the art gallery Maison de l'Art Nouveau
The Maison de l'Art Nouveau ("House of New Art"), abbreviated often as L'Art Nouveau, and known also as Maison Bing for the owner, was a gallery opened on 26 December 1895, by Siegfried Bing at 22 rue de Provence, Paris.Martin Eidelberg and Suzan ...
, which opened that year in Paris. Later in 1895, he visited Dieppe, socialising among the artistic community and the English families with their attractive daughters, as described by Simona Pakenham in her study of the English people there in the century before World War I. His friends remembered him as " a sick man, unable to face reality". In spite of drunken spells, disreputable company and sporadic output, Conder's powers as an artist won him acclaim. He made a specialty of painting on silk, relatively easy on silk fans, but he excelled on one occasion when he painted a series of white silk gowns worn by Alexandra Thaulow, wife of Norwegian painter Frits Thaulow, while she stood on a table, the gowns becoming "coloured like a field of flowers". One of his painted fans inspired '' The Sanguine Fan'', a 1917 ballet by Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...
.
In Dieppe, Conder met Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley ( ; 21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Woodblock printing in Japan, Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. ...
, but they did not like each other. He continued to paint, but his output was severely affected by the continual poor health, including paralysis and a bout of delirium tremens
Delirium tremens (DTs; ) is a rapid onset of confusion usually caused by withdrawal from alcohol. When it occurs, it is often three days into the withdrawal symptoms and lasts for two to three days. Physical effects may include shaking, sh ...
.
He married a wealthy widow, Stella Maris Belford (née MacAdams) at The British Embassy Paris on 5 December 1901, giving him financial security. His later works are not nearly as well regarded critically as his earlier Australian paintings.
Later life and death
He spent the last year of his life in a sanatorium, and died in Holloway Sanatorium of " general paresis of the insane", in modern terms tertiary syphilis. In death, Conder's work was rated highly by many notable artists, such as Pissarro
Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( ; ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but t ...
and Degas
Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French people, French Impressionism, Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.
Degas also produced bronze sculptures, Print ...
.
The Canberra
Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest in ...
suburb of Conder, established in 1991, was named after him. Satirist Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries (17 February 1934 – 22 April 2023) was an Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist. He was best known for writing and playing his stage and television characters Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. He appeare ...
was a major aficionado and collector of the artist, and at one time had the world's largest private collection of Conder's work.[Clive James, "Approximately in the Vicinity of Barry Humphries", ''London Review of Books'', 6–9 October 1983]
See also
*Australian art
Australian art is a broad spectrum of art created in or about Australia, or by Australians overseas, spanning from Prehistory of Australia, prehistoric times to the present day. The art forms include, but are not limited to, Indigenous Australi ...
References
Bibliography
* Galbally, Ann. ''Charles Conder: the last bohemian,'' Miegunyah Press: Melbourne University (2002
Catalogue reference and book summary
*Gibson, Frank & Dodgson, Campbell
''Charles Conder; his life and work''
(London: John Lane, 1914).
*Pakenham, Simona. ''Sixty Miles from England: The English at Dieppe 1814-1914'', (London, Macmillan, 1967).
*Rothenstein, John. ''The Life and Death of Conder'', (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1938; New York: E.P. Dutton, c.1938).
*
*Art Gallery of New South Wales: highlights from the collection (2008), Edmund Capon (England; Australia, b.1940) (Author), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*'K' is for Conder: Charles Conder retrospective (2003), Public Programmes Department, Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia) (Author), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*''Charles Conder 1868–1909'' (2003), Ann Galbally (Australia) (Author), Barry Pearce (Australia) (Author), Barry Humphries (Australia, b.1934) (Author), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*''Australian art: in the Art Gallery of New South Wales'' (2000), Barry Pearce (Australia) (Author), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*''Art Gallery of New South Wales Handbook'' (1999), Bruce James (Australia) (Author), Edmund Capon (England; Australia, b.1940) (Director), Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*''The Art Gallery of New South Wales collections'' (1994), Ewen McDonald (Australia) (Editor), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*''Art Gallery of New South Wales Handbook'' (1988), Annabel Davie (Editor), Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*''The Artist & the City'' (1983), Brian Ladd (Australia) (Author), Alan Krell (Author), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*''Art Gallery of New South Wales picturebook'' (1972), Editor Unknown (Editor), Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*''Charles Conder: 1868–1909'' (1966), Dr Ursula Hoff (England; Australia, b.1909, d.2005) (Author), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*''Art Gallery of New South Wales Quarterly'' (Jan 1960), Hal Missingham (Australia, b.1906, d.1994) (Editor), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*A catalogue of Australian oil paintings in the National Art Gallery of New South Wales 1875–1952 (1953), Bernard Smith (Australia, b.1916, d.2011) (Author), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*A retrospective exhibition of Australian painting (1953), Hal Missingham (Australia, b.1906, d.1994) (Author), National Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*''100 years of Australian painting'' (1948), Bernard Smith (Australia, b.1916, d.2011) (Author), National Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*''150 years of Australian art'' (1938), Lionel Lindsay (Australia, b.1874, d.1961) (Author), Trustees of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
*''Fifty years of Australian art 1879–1929'' (1929), George Galway (Australia) (Author), Royal Art Society of New South Wales Press (Australia), New South Wales, Australia.
*Elwyn Lynn (author) ''Charles Conder'' ''The Australian Landscape and its Artists'', Bay Books 1977 pp 60–65
External links
*
Charles Conder
at 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 ...
Charles Conder – Short Biography at Yellow Nineties Online
(ArtCyclopedia)
*
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and list of most visited art museums in the world, most visited art mu ...
An early taste for literature 1888
– Ballarat Fine Art Gallery.
Review of Conder exhibition
("Nineteenth-century Art Worldwide" on-line magazine)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conder, Charles
1868 births
1909 deaths
Académie Julian alumni
Heidelberg School
People from Tottenham
Deaths in mental institutions
Deaths from syphilis
19th-century Australian painters
19th-century Australian male artists
Symbolist painters
Australian landscape painters
Australian male painters
Infectious disease deaths in England
English emigrants to colonial Australia