Tom Roberts

Tom Roberts, Australian Impressionist artist, Heidelberg School
Born in England in the middle of the 19th century, Tom Roberts moved to Australia with his parents when he was 13, and became one of Australia’s most prominent artists.

Roberts, with his good friend Frederick McCubbin and several other artists, notably Walter Withers and Arthur Streeton, formed the core group of artist known as Australian Impressionists. They were also known as the Heidelberg School, after the area in Victoria, near Melbourne, where they frequently painted.

Several of the notable museums in Australia have generously contributed high-resolution images of Roberts’ work to the Google Art Project, allowing those of us outside of Australia to develop an appreciation for this wonderful and (in the U.S. anyway) largely unknown painter.

These images are also available as high-resolution downloadable files on Wikimedia Commons. I’ve listed other resources below. Note that The Athenaeum and WikiArt have additional reasonably large images.

2 Replies to “Tom Roberts”

  1. The importance of colour and ‘direct painting’, ideas that Roberts brought back to Australia. Still defining Impressionism in general.

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