Frederick McCubbin – Virtual Tour

Frederick McCubbin (1855 – 1917) was an Australian artist and prominent member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian Impressionism.

McCubbin was born in Melbourne, Australia, and worked for a time as solicitor’s clerk, a coach painter, and in his family’s bakery business while studying art at the National Gallery of Victoria’s School of Design, where he met Tom Roberts and studied under Eugene von Guerard.

He also studied at the Victorian Academy of the Arts and sold his first painting in 1880 at the age of twenty-five.

McCubbin’s work began to attract attention, and he won several prizes from the National Gallery. By the mid-1880s, he concentrated more on painting the Australian bush, the works for which he became notable.

In 1888, he became instructor and master of the School of Design at the National Gallery, where he taught many students who themselves became prominent Australian artists, including Charles Conder and Arthur Streeton.

In 1901 McCubbin and his family moved to Mount Macedon. It was at the Macedon region with its surrounding bush, which inspired him to experiment with the light and its effects on color in nature.

It was in this setting that he painted The Pioneer, among many other bush works. McCubbin continued to paint, though, by the beginning of World War I, his health began to fail, and he died in 1917 from a heart attack.

A Virtual Tour of Frederick McCubbin

A Tour of Frederick McCubbin’s Art

The Pioneer

“The Pioneer” by Frederick McCubbin was painted in 1904 as a triptych depicting the story of a settler family making a living in the Australian bush.

The left panel shows the settler and his wife. They are claiming what was called by the government as their “selection.”

“Selection” referred to “free selection before survey” of crown land in some Australian colonies as part of legislation introduced in the 1860s.

In the middle of the bush is the wagon. The man is starting a campfire, and in the foreground, the woman is deep in thought. In the center panel, the passage of time is indicated by the young child in the woman’s arms.

The family home can be seen in the center through a clearing in the trees. The clearing shows where the trees have been cleared to create pasture and tillable land.

The right panel shows that time has moved on with a city that is visible in the background. A young man is kneeling and clearing a grave.

Is the young man kneeling the young boy from the center panel, clearing the gravesite? Museum: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Child in The Bush

“Child in The Bush” by Frederick McCubbin is a painting that revisited a central theme in McCubbin’s work which focused on narratives of vulnerable children stranded in the Australian Bush.

This painting depicts a girl wandering through the bush carrying a basket, collecting wildflowers, or berries. Her white dress stands out in her surroundings.

The landscape in this painting was close to McCubbin’s residence at Mount Macedon in Victoria, Australia, and the child in the image was the artist’s youngest daughter.

McCubbin made skillful use of a palette knife to apply flecks of green, blue, and tan, pink, and violet colors.

McCubbin was an Australian painter and prominent member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian Impressionism. Museum: National Gallery of Australia

Down on His Luck

“Down on His Luck” by Frederick McCubbin depicts a disheartened swagman or unlucky gold prospector, sitting by a campfire brooding over his luck.

McCubbin’s iconic paintings of romanticized rural and pioneer life are as famous today as they were with his audiences in the 1900s.

According to an 1889 review: “The face tells of hardships, keen and blighting in their influence, but there is a nonchalant and slightly cynical expression, which proclaims the absence of all self-pity … McCubbin’s picture is thoroughly Australian in spirit.”

The surrounding bush is painted in subdued tones, also reflecting the somber and contemplative mood. The scene was located near the Box Hill artists’ camp outside Melbourne.

Note the prominent eucalyptus plant placed prominently in the foreground and painted in bold detail, reflecting McCubbin’s love of the Australian bush.

One can imagine the campfire crackles while birds and cicadas call from the trees. Museum: Art Gallery of Western Australia

Australian Impressionism

During the 1870s and 1880s, European artists immigrated to Australia and brought their experience of the “Plein–air” movement to Australia.

Through their work and teaching, they made significant contributions to the development of Impressionism in Australia. Drawing on naturalist and impressionist ideas, they sought to capture Australian life, the bush, and the sunlight of the country.

In French Impressionism, colors were painted with more explosive energy and with more pure primary and secondary tones for complementary contrasts.

Australian Impressionists tended to show Australian tones of dry soil, eucalypt woods, and sand, with the dabbling of warm and cold colors.

Australian Impressionism is notable for its compositions of Australia’s cultural heritage. During the period after Australia’s Federation in 1901, Australian nationalism and Australian Impressionists provided works that have become icons of a passing Australia.