Tom Roberts

Infobox person
name = Tom Roberts

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image_size = frameless
caption = Portrait taken c.1920-1925
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birth_date = 9th of March 1856
birth_place = Dorchester, Dorset, England
death_date = 14 September 1931
death_place = 'Talisman' in Kallista
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resting_place = Illawarra churchyard, near Longford, Tasmania
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other_names = Nickname "Bulldog"
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occupation = Artist
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spouse = Elizabeth (Lillie) Williamson (1896-1928) Jean Boyes (1928-1931)
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Thomas William Roberts (9 March 1856–14 September 1931), usually known simply as Tom, was a famous Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School.

Life

Born in Dorchester, Dorset, England, where his parents were newspaper editors, Roberts emigrated with his family to Australia in 1869. Settling in Collingwood, a suburb of Melbourne, he worked as a photographer's assistant through the 1870s while studying art at night under Louis Buvelot and befriending others who were to become prominent artists, notably Frederick McCubbin. He returned to England for three years of full-time art study at the Royal Academy Schools from 1881 to 1884 .

Through the 1880s and 1890s he worked in Victoria, in his studio at the famous studio complex of Grosvenor chambers at number 9 Collins Street in Melbourne, and at a number of artists' camps and visits around the colony. He married 35 year old Elizabeth (Lillie) Williamson in 1896, and they had a son, Caleb. Many of his most famous paintings come from this period. Roberts was an expert maker of picture frames, and during the period 1903-1914, when he painted relatively little, much of his income apparently came from this work.

His artwork the "Big Picture" was a masterpiece because the faces were so clearly done.

He spent World War I in England assisting at a hospital. In Australia, he built a house at Kallista, near Melbourne. This was a particularly productive and happy period in Roberts' life.

Elizabeth died in January 1928, and Tom remarried, to Jean Boyes, in August 1928. He died in 1931 of cancer at Sydney, Australia.Helo

Works

Roberts painted a considerable number of fine oil landscapes and portraits, some painted at artist camps with his friend McCubbin, but perhaps his most famous works, of his era, were two large works, "Shearing the Rams" and "The Big Picture".

"Shearing the Rams", based on a visit to a sheep station (large farm) at Brocklesby in southern New South Wales, depicted the wool industry that had been Australia's first export industry and a staple of rural life. At the time it was exhibited, it was criticized because many critics did not feel that it fitted the definition of 'high art'. However, since the wool industry was Australia's greatest export industry at the time, it was a theme which many Australian people could identify with. The painting showed a view of the shearing sheds which was not in some cases realistic. Shearing would probably have been much messier; for instance the shearer on the left has picked the ram up to move it, when normally it would have been dragged backwards.

Roberts loved this theme of the value of the work of ordinary Australian people. He made many other paintings showing country people working, with a similar image of the shearing sheds in "The Golden Fleece", a drover racing after sheep breaking away from the flock in "A Break Away!", and with men chopping trees in "Wood splitters". Many of Roberts' paintings were landscapes or ideas done on small canvases that he did very quickly, such as his exhibits at the famous 9 x 5 exhibition in Melbourne, 9 x 5 referring to the size in inches of the cigar box lids which most of the paintings were done on. Roberts had more works on display in this exhibition than anyone else. Many of the paintings had humorous touches and anecdotes, showing Tom Roberts' sense of humour.

"The Big Picture", a depiction of the first sitting of the Parliament of Australia was an enormous work, very notable for the event depicted as well as the quality of Roberts' work.

References

*cite web
first=Helen
last=Topliss
title =Roberts, Thomas William (Tom) (1856 - 1931)
publisher =Australian National University
work=Australian Dictionary of Biography
url =http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110419b.htm
accessdate = 2007-06-05
*cite book
last =Topliss
first =Helen
title =Tom Roberts 1856-1931: A Catalogue Raisonne Volumes I and II
publisher =Oxford University Press, USA
date =1985
pages =544 pages
isbn =0195545133

External links

* [http://www.pictureaustralia.org/search/Roberts%20Tom%201856-1931 Tom Roberts on Picture Australia]
* [http://www.artistsfootsteps.com/html/Artists_roberts.htm artistsfootsteps.com] - source of most of the material for this article.
* [http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/collection/australian/painting/r/apa00106.html ngv.vic.gov.au] - "Shearing the Rams" at the National Gallery of Victoria.