Streeton, Sir Arthur (1867-1943), was Australia’s most celebrated landscape painter during the period from 1920 to 1940. He was a member of the Heidelberg School, a group of Australian artists who painted in the open-air Impressionist style. Streeton reflected the principles advocated by Tom Roberts, the leader of the school. The chief characteristics of Streeton’s landscapes in oils were his use of a blue and gold palette and a square brush stroke. His paintings of the Hawkesbury River country gained him enormous popularity in Australia. But his earlier works, such as Golden Summer (1888) and Still Glides the Stream (1890), are now rated as his best because of a vitality that was missing from his later works.
Arthur Ernest Streeton was born on April 8, 1867, in Mount Duneed, Victoria. He studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Schools under George Frederick Folingsby, a teacher whose methods he later repudiated. Streeton was knighted in 1937. By the end of his life he was considered a national institution. Streeton died on Sept. 3, 1943.
See also Heidelberg School .
