THE ROAD TO MONBULK, 1933
MAX MELDRUM
oil on compressed card
38.0 x 45.5 cm
signed lower right [indistinctly]: Meldrum
Estate of Max Meldrum, Melbourne
Thence by descent
Private collection, Melbourne
Paintings by Max Meldrum, Athenaeum Gallery, Melbourne, 24 February – 7 March 1936, cat. 7
Exhibition of Pictures by Max Meldrum, David Jones Gallery, Melbourne, November 1937, cat. 10
Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings by Max Meldrum, Velasquez Gallery, Melbourne, 4 – 22 June 1940, cat. 89
Max Meldrum, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 3 March – 15 April 1961, cat. 39
Max Meldrum and Family, Victorian Artists’ Society Gallery, Melbourne, 23 October – 4 November 1998, cat. 42
The Road to Monbulk, 1933 was painted by Meldrum while he and his family were staying with painters John and Mary Farmer at Olinda after his return from spending five years in France and America. Notably, the work featured in the artist’s exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1961, and was first exhibited at the Athenaeum Gallery in a solo exhibition in 1936, with watercolour painter Harold Herbert noting in The Argus, ‘Country roads near Melbourne are among the best of the landscapes.’1 The paintings of roadways which Meldrum undertook during this period, including Olinda Falls Road depicted here, portray different times of day and varying conditions of light and atmosphere; the aim of the painter being to capture the essential beauty of his subject matter through an ordered arrangement of the various elements in their tonal relationship to one another.
1. Herbert, H., ‘Meldrum and His Methods’, The Argus, Melbourne, 25 February 1936