The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
View across the Somme River, with Mont St Quentin in background; Mont St Quentin, Hindenburg Line, Western Front.
Arthur Streeton is best known as one of the painters of the Heidelberg School in Melbourne in the late nineteenth century. His name is linked with Tom Roberts, Charles Conder, and Frederick McCubbin as responsible for developing in Australia an impressionist technique of painting, and depicting scenes that embraced the nationalistic concerns of the last two decades of the nineteenth century. During his lifetime he was acknowledged as the finest painter of the Australian landscape; he was the first Australian painter to be honoured by a retrospective exhibition in his own lifetime; and only the second to be knighted.
In 1918 while based in London, he was appointed by the Australian War Memorial as an official war artist and travelled to France to record the involvement of Australians in the battles taking place along the Somme River. During the period of his employment he produced ten paintings and eighty-six drawings that are held by the Memorial. These were all executed in the years 1918 and 1919. The Memorial later purchased his HMS Renown, Sydney Harbour painted in 1922, and commissioned several large paintings of significant wartime subjects.
Depicts a view of Mont St Quentin, with lines of trenches visible on the hillside. Arthur Streeton is best known as one of the painters of the Heidelberg School in Melbourne in the late nineteenth ce
Depicts a pencil sketch of the road to Mont St Quentin, with a supply dump in the foreground, the road and trees in the mid ground and the village of Mont St Quentin in the background. Arthur Streeton
Depicts a view of Mont St Quentin from Peronne, with civilian and military buildings visible, the ruins of a church and other buildings and artillery in the right foreground. Arthur Streeton is best k
Depicts a wrecked building in the town of Peronne. On the verso is the sketch 'Road up to Mont St Quentin' which depicts the war damaged town of Mont St Quentin and wrecked trees and forest in the dis
Depicts the entrance to the St Quentin tunnel taking the canal through the hill at Bellicourt near the Hindenburg Line on the Western Front. Arthur Streeton is best known as one of the painters of th
Depicts a street in the town of Peronne at the Western Front with war damaged buildings and debris scattered throughout the street. Arthur Streeton is best known as one of the painters of the Heidelbe
