From April to August this year, the National Gallery of Victoria will hold an exhibition of Australian Impressionist art entitled ‘She-Oak and Sunlight’. Curated by scholar and historian, Dr Anne Gray, the exhibition ‘will chart the creative exchanges between leading figures of the movements in Australia … [and] reveal the … personal relationships and artistic synergies between Australian Impressionists’.
We will once again see works by the ‘usual male suspects’ – Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, and Charles Conder, but this show will also include a significant number of female artists: – Clara Southern, Jane Sutherland, Iso Rae, May Vale, Jane Price and Ina Gregory.
Thinking about ‘inclusion’, I wondered about the often mentioned, but seldom discussed, friend of the Australian Impressionists, Louis Abrahams (1852-1903). Whenever there is an exhibition of these artists, Abrahams appears as a footnote despite being an important and valued member of the group.
Born in London, Abrahams’ family migrated to Australia in 1860 when he was eight years of age. Ten years later, Abraham’s father, Lewis, entered into a partnership with Gershon Sniders and together they established a significant cigar and cigarette manufacturing business – initially in Lonsdale Street, and later in Drewery Lane. In 1885, the partnership dissolved but Abrahams’ father continued the business and retained the name ‘Sniders and Abrahams’.
While attending the Artisans School of Design in Carlton, Louis Abrahams met Fred McCubbin and the pair became close friends with both continuing their studies at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in the 1870s. While at the school, they founded the ‘Life-Club’ to study the nude and Abrahams was one of the students who pushed for reforms at the NGV . Abrahams’ art endeavours included drawing, watercolour painting and etching. He was a member of the Buonarotti Society – a professional artists’ organisation that utilised literature and music to create a comprehensive artistic institution, distinct from other contemporary cultural societies – and he exhibited with the Australian Artists’ Association founded in 1886.
In 1885, Abrahams (known as ‘The Don’ by his friends), McCubbin (‘The Prof’) and fellow art student Tom Roberts (‘Bulldog’), established the Box Hill artist’s camp to paint the Australian bush en plein air – a technique and approach Roberts had brought back from his travels in Europe. Roberts’ 1886 painting The artists’ camp shows Abrahams and McCubbin on one of their early trips. As Christopher Riopelle, curator of the London National Gallery ‘s 2016 exhibition on ‘Australian Impressionism’ said: “This was a small group, but they were very closely allied … it was very much about friendship and a shared sense that they were doing something interesting and original. They painted together, lived together and went on camps together. They shared their progress on an almost daily basis”. As McCubbin later recalled to Roberts: “You remember the evenings we sat at the Camp, the last light of the sun on the ti-tree in the creek – the smell of the chop – & gum twigs – the mopoke, a happy time” (1914).
Over time the trio were joined by Arthur Streeton and Charles Conder and the outdoor painting moved to the Mount Eagle estate near Heidelberg in 1888. However, the demands of his family’s tobacco business meant Abrahams had less time for art and by 1889 he was managing his father’s company. He still made trips to visit his friends at Eaglemont and also supplied them with the cedar cigar-box lids to use as canvases. This resulted in 183 of these paintings being exhibited in the landmark ‘9 by 5 Impression Exhibition’ of 1889.
In March 1888, Abrahams married Golda Fig Brasch in Sydney, and Tom Roberts, who was a witness at the wedding, painted a portrait of her in his Grosvenor Chambers’ studio as a wedding present and companion piece to his earlier portrait of Louis. (Roberts also painted several portraits of Golda’s sister, Lena, in 1893). The closeness of the group is highlighted by the fact that when McCubbin became a father, he named his first son Louis after Abrahams, who reciprocated by naming his son Frederick.
Although he had a studio in Grosvenor Chambers, and despite occasional weekend excursions to Heidelberg with Golda (who was an ‘amateur sketcher’), to his great regret Abrahams creative output ceased as the family business took over his time. Instead, he and his wife hosted soirées at their mansion in Kew. Abrahams became a patron of his peers and his financial support (along with Golda’s and his brother and business partner Lawrence’s encouragement), was important in establishing the reputation of his friends.
In September 1903, Abrahams offered to fund a trip to London with McCubbin. However, suffering from depression, Abrahams tragically shot and killed himself before the trip could eventuate.
The Abrahams’ patronage of the Australian Impressionists continued after Louis’ death. His widow subsequently purchased McCubbin’s Sawing Timber at McCubbin’s Guild Hall exhibition in 1907 and this, and other sales from the show, enabled McCubbin to take his one and only European tour in the same year. McCubbin’s The Yarra from Kensington Road, South Yarra (1911) shows the influence that European Impressionism had on McCubbin and was probably purchased by Golda from McCubbin’s joint exhibition with his son Louis, ‘Pictures by Fred and Louis McCubbin’ at the Athenaeum Art Gallery in 1912.
Sadly, little of Louis Abrahams’ artistic output is visible and he is now best remembered as the subject of portraits by his friends Roberts, Streeton, Julian Ashton and John Mather. He is also the model for two of McCubbin’s best-known paintings – Down on His Luck (1889) and A Bush Burial (1890).
Some of the paintings Abrahams acquired were sold at auction in Melbourne in 1919. The forward to the auction catalogue for ‘Australian Pictures Collected by the Late Louis Abrahams and others, Decoration Co., 15 August 1919’ states: ‘Amongst the patrons of Australian Art in its early stages the names of the two brothers Lawrence and Louis Abrahams stand very prominent. The brothers were intimately associated with many of the earlier artists, and their collections were naturally very similar in character. Art lovers will, therefore, now have the opportunity of acquiring good examples of the work of Streeton, McCubbin, Conder, Davies, Hilder, Longstaff, Heysen and others whose names are household words in the world of Australian Art.’
While artists are easily remembered by the works they leave behind, these works would not exist without the support, encouragement and love of their friends. So let’s remember Louis Abrahams when we look at ‘She-Oak and Sunlight’.
Post script: Sniders and Abrahams was a prominent company who actively used ‘cigarette cards’ as an important marketing platform and cards were issued with their ‘Standard’, ‘Peter Pan’ and ‘Milo’ cigarette brands. Over its history, Sniders and Abrahams issued thirty-three card series (featuring everything from football players to actresses to racehorses) – all of which are highly collectable.