During the summer of 1886–87, Streeton, aged nineteen, first befriended
Tom Roberts 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, 11 km north-east of Melbourne's city centre. He intended to walk the remaining distance to the site where
Louis Buvelot painted his 1866 work
Summer afternoon near Templestowe, which Streeton considered "the first fine landscape painted in Victoria". 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 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 ... But tobacco and wine weighed healthily against the darkness". About the same time, Streeton met the artist
Charles Conder, who travelled down from Sydney in October 1888 at the invitation of
Tom Roberts. 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."). 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, London, and was awarded a
Mention honourable at the 1892
Paris Salon.
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 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 series and
'''Fire's on'. Cremorne pastoral'''s 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 before continuing on via Cairo and
Naples. He held an exhibition at the
Royal Academy in 1900 and became a member of the
Chelsea Arts Club 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 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 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 , 1918 Along with other members of the
Chelsea Arts Club, including
Tom Roberts, he joined the
Royal Army Medical Corps (
British Army) at the age of 48. He worked at the 3rd London General Hospital in
Wandsworth and reached the rank of
corporal. , France, 1918 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.
Later years After the war, Streeton resumed painting in the
Grampians and
Dandenong Ranges. Streeton built a house on five acres (20,000m2) at
Olinda 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 in 1928 with
Afternoon Light, Goulburn Valley. He was an
art critic for
The Argus from 1929 to 1935 and in 1937 was
knighted for services to the arts. Streeton died in September 1943 and is buried at
Ferntree Gully cemetery. ==Legacy==