Thomas William Roberts was an English-born Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School art movement, known as Australian impressionism.
17 Facts About Tom Roberts
2.
Tom Roberts migrated with his family to Australia in 1869 to live with relatives.
3.
Tom Roberts worked as a photographer's assistant through the 1870s, while studying art at night under Louis Buvelot and befriending others who were to become prominent artists, notably Frederick McCubbin.
4.
Tom Roberts hence decided to further his art studies, and returned to England for three years of full-time art study at the Royal Academy Schools from 1881 to 1884.
5.
Tom Roberts traveled in Spain in 1883 with Australian artist John Russell, where he met Spanish artists Laureano Barrau and Ramon Casas who introduced him to the principles of Impressionism and plein air painting.
6.
From 1884 and through to February 1892, Tom Roberts worked again in Victoria, and from 1888 in the famous purpose-built studio complex of Grosvenor Chambers at 9 Collins Street, Melbourne.
7.
Tom Roberts was a prominent member of the Buonarotti Club, adopting its bohemian habit of dress with a red satin lined opera cape and a 'crush topper,' though advocating that professional artists be put in charge of the Club's exhibition activities; so instituted a selection panel of Frederick McCubbin, Louis Abrahams, John Mather, Jane Sutherland and himself, who would select and hang the works and provide exhibitors with constructive feedback.
8.
Tom Roberts spent World War I in England assisting at a hospital.
9.
Elizabeth died in January 1928, and Tom Roberts remarried, to Jean Boyes, in August 1928.
10.
Tom Roberts died in 1931 of cancer in Kallista near Melbourne.
11.
Tom Roberts's ashes are buried in the churchyard at Illawarra near Longford, Tasmania.
12.
Tom Roberts painted a considerable number of fine oil landscapes and portraits, some painted at artist camps with his friend McCubbin.
13.
Many of Tom Roberts' paintings were landscapes or ideas done on small canvases that he did very quickly, such as his show at the famous 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition in Melbourne, "9 by 5" referring to the size in inches of the cigar box lids on which most of the paintings were done.
14.
Tom Roberts had more works on display in this exhibition than anyone else.
15.
In 1888 Tom Roberts met Conder in Sydney and they painted together at Coogee beach.
16.
Tom Roberts' life was dramatised in the 1985 Australian mini series One Summer Again.
17.
Tom Roberts was one of four Australian artists whose paintings featured in the Australia's Impressionists exhibition at the National Gallery, London, which ran from December 2016 to March 2017; it was described as 'the first UK exhibition of its kind'.