MELBOURNE FROM SASSAFRAS, 1921
ARTHUR STREETON
oil on canvas
64.0 x 101.0 cm
signed lower right: A STREETON
Mr Norman Bayles, Melbourne
Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 2 November 1983, lot 40 (as 'Rain Burst over the Dandenongs')
Lister Gallery, Perth
Company Collection, Perth
Sotheby's, Sydney, 8 May 2012, lot 33
Private collection, Melbourne
Arthur Streeton, Victorian Artists' Society Galleries, Melbourne, 5–6 July 1921 (as 'Melbourne from Sassafras')
Recent Australian Landscape by Arthur Streeton, Education Department, Sydney, 21–28 November 1921, cat. 2 (as 'Melbourne, from Sassafras', 250 gns)
The Age, Melbourne, 6 July 1921, p. 11
The Argus, Melbourne, 6 July 1921, p. 13
The Herald, Melbourne, 6 July 1921, p. 9
The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 22 November 1921, p. 11
Streeton, A., The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, Melbourne, 1935, cat. 731 (as 'Melbourne, from Sassafras', 1920, oil, 40 x 25, in possession of Mr Norman Bayles)
Following his purchase of land at Olinda in 1921, throughout the 1920s and 1930s Arthur Streeton continued to paint Dandenong subjects, often depicting hillside and distant views showing an ongoing interest in capturing the illusion of far distance.
The exhibition of Recent Australian Landscape by Arthur Streeton, shown at the Education Department Buildings, Sydney in 1921 was reviewed in the Sydney Morning Herald, making particular reference to the large and outstanding work Melbourne, from Sassafrass 1921.
'There are two paintings of 'Melbourne', in which the Victorian metropolis is but little more than suggested, the interest arising from the poetry of the treatment. In No. 10 [a view] from [the] Dandenongs a fine study of widespread plains is presented beneath a cloud-encumbered sky in fine weather. Far away the smoke of the great city kindles the imagination. No. 2, Melbourne from Sassafrass, affords a nearer glimpse, but the interest is chiefly due to the clever handling of the sky from which showers of rain over the level field break the light. The technical difficulty of suggesting the myriad of trees massed on the rising steep in the foreground has been overcome with a sombre effect which contrasts with the animation of the scene below.' 1
1. Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 22 November 1921, p. 11