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Sydney Long
Sydney Long (20 August 1871 – 23 January 1955) was an Australian artist. Originally inspired by the Heidelberg School of Australian impressionism, Long developed his own Symbolist approach to the Australian landscape, and by the 1910s had become Australia's foremost Art Nouveau painter.
For many years Sydney Long claimed to have been born on 15 November 1872. The researcher for the Australian Dictionary of Biography found that he was born on 20 August 1871 at Ifield, Goulburn, New South Wales, well after his father’s death. This uncertainty about his age and parentage may be why, in later years, he claimed to have been born in 1878.
More recently Anne Gray has discovered more possibilities for his parentage. She also discovered that although he claimed to have married Catherine Brennan in 1911, they did not marry until 1924. Despite the fluidity of Long’s biographical detail Gray has been able to verify some facts.
Sydney Long was born in Goulburn, the youngest of five siblings. He claimed to have had painting lessons from a Mrs Miller who taught him how to copy German oleographs and to paint on satin. The first painting he remembered seeing was at a country fair, a copy of H.J. Johnstone’s A billabong of the Goulburn, Victoria.
Sydney Long’s first known painting, The River House (1888), was probably painted shortly before he arrived in Sydney. There are records of his enrollment as an evening student at the New South Wales Art Society from 1892, where he was taught by Julian Ashton and A.J. Daplyn. He first exhibited at the Art Society’s Annual Exhibition in 1893, but by 1894 his first major painting, By Tranquil Waters, was purchased by the National Art Gallery of New South Wales. Ashton was the Trustee who advocated for the work, which was purchased “conditionally upon the artist cutting down lower portions giving more definition”. This is presumably why there are two visible signatures on the painting. The subject of boys bathing in Cooks River did cause some considerable attention, both from politicians and the media. Sappho Smith, the columnist of The Bulletin, described it as “Veal boys in a sea of ink” (6 October 1894). The critic of The Daily Telegraph wrote that it was “impudent in its very cleverness”, but The Sydney Mail wrote that “the most fastidious ‘stickler’ for propriety in art could raise no objection to studies from the nude if all artists were content to leave so much to the imagination.”
The sale enabled Long to leave his daytime employment. In 1895, when Julian Ashton, Tom Roberts and other impressionist artists left Art Society to form the Society of Artists, Long was on the initial committee. In the aftermath of the dispute, Ashton founded the Sydney Art School, and Long became one of the teachers, taking students on plein air painting excursions to the rural countryside west of Sydney. He was briefly engaged to one student, Thea Proctor, and she features in some of his paintings of this time.
This landscape inspired some of Long’s best loved landscape paintings including The Valley. However he is most widely known for his excursions into decorative Symbolism. His best known works in this style are The Spirit of the Plains (1897) and Pan (1898).
In 1902 the two warring art societies were briefly amalgamated under the new name of “Royal Art Society”. Long painted what he called “an amalgamated painting”, Flamingoes, with the dark tones favoured by the Art Society and the decorative style of the Society of Artists. He used the same model for both figures – the very young Rose Soady, who later became Rose Lindsay.
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Sydney Long
Sydney Long (20 August 1871 – 23 January 1955) was an Australian artist. Originally inspired by the Heidelberg School of Australian impressionism, Long developed his own Symbolist approach to the Australian landscape, and by the 1910s had become Australia's foremost Art Nouveau painter.
For many years Sydney Long claimed to have been born on 15 November 1872. The researcher for the Australian Dictionary of Biography found that he was born on 20 August 1871 at Ifield, Goulburn, New South Wales, well after his father’s death. This uncertainty about his age and parentage may be why, in later years, he claimed to have been born in 1878.
More recently Anne Gray has discovered more possibilities for his parentage. She also discovered that although he claimed to have married Catherine Brennan in 1911, they did not marry until 1924. Despite the fluidity of Long’s biographical detail Gray has been able to verify some facts.
Sydney Long was born in Goulburn, the youngest of five siblings. He claimed to have had painting lessons from a Mrs Miller who taught him how to copy German oleographs and to paint on satin. The first painting he remembered seeing was at a country fair, a copy of H.J. Johnstone’s A billabong of the Goulburn, Victoria.
Sydney Long’s first known painting, The River House (1888), was probably painted shortly before he arrived in Sydney. There are records of his enrollment as an evening student at the New South Wales Art Society from 1892, where he was taught by Julian Ashton and A.J. Daplyn. He first exhibited at the Art Society’s Annual Exhibition in 1893, but by 1894 his first major painting, By Tranquil Waters, was purchased by the National Art Gallery of New South Wales. Ashton was the Trustee who advocated for the work, which was purchased “conditionally upon the artist cutting down lower portions giving more definition”. This is presumably why there are two visible signatures on the painting. The subject of boys bathing in Cooks River did cause some considerable attention, both from politicians and the media. Sappho Smith, the columnist of The Bulletin, described it as “Veal boys in a sea of ink” (6 October 1894). The critic of The Daily Telegraph wrote that it was “impudent in its very cleverness”, but The Sydney Mail wrote that “the most fastidious ‘stickler’ for propriety in art could raise no objection to studies from the nude if all artists were content to leave so much to the imagination.”
The sale enabled Long to leave his daytime employment. In 1895, when Julian Ashton, Tom Roberts and other impressionist artists left Art Society to form the Society of Artists, Long was on the initial committee. In the aftermath of the dispute, Ashton founded the Sydney Art School, and Long became one of the teachers, taking students on plein air painting excursions to the rural countryside west of Sydney. He was briefly engaged to one student, Thea Proctor, and she features in some of his paintings of this time.
This landscape inspired some of Long’s best loved landscape paintings including The Valley. However he is most widely known for his excursions into decorative Symbolism. His best known works in this style are The Spirit of the Plains (1897) and Pan (1898).
In 1902 the two warring art societies were briefly amalgamated under the new name of “Royal Art Society”. Long painted what he called “an amalgamated painting”, Flamingoes, with the dark tones favoured by the Art Society and the decorative style of the Society of Artists. He used the same model for both figures – the very young Rose Soady, who later became Rose Lindsay.
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