E Phillips Fox
(Australia, France 12 Mar 1865–08 Oct 1915)
Art students
- Location
- Not on display
- Further information
'Art students' was set at the Melbourne Art School in Bourke Street, which E Phillips Fox co-founded with Tudor St George Tucker when Fox returned from Europe in 1892. It was considered a groundbreaking work for its unconventional vertical, cropped composition and its frank naturalism. The
informal poses and paint-splattered smocks of its female students and the messy realism of its littered floor were considered ‘unfeminine’ when the work was first exhibited in Melbourne in 1895.'Art students' is a vivid demonstration of Fox’s compositional and colouristic skills. Its grand-scale informality also presents an alternative to the heroic ‘national’ and masculine subjects of Australian painting in the 1890s.
- Place of origin
-
Melbourne,
Victoria,
Australia
- Year
- 1895
- Media
- Painting
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 182.9 x 114.3cm stretcher; 204.0 x 134.0 x 9.5cm frame
- Signature & date
- Signed and dated l.l. corner, black oil "E.Phillips Fox / 95".
- Credit
- Purchased 1943
- Accession number
- 7319
