A photograph in the Streeton Collection at the Art Gallery of New South Wales shows a shirtless Arthur Streeton in his early twenties perched on a rock “painting a little rotter,” as he called the preliminary sketches that led to his glorious blue/gold Impressionist canvases capturing Sydney’s Harbour.
Just such a little rotter is now on show in the Mosman Art Gallery’s Sydney from Mosman exhibition thanks to the sharp eyes of art dealer Brenda Colahan, who knew of Mosman’s splendid Balnaves Collection of sixteen Australian Impressionist and early twentieth century artworks significant to Mosman – including a Streeton – that the late Neil Balnaves AO had donated to the Gallery. Could this “rapid and heartfelt pencil-and-watercolour sketch of Sydney Harbour from Mosman,” as curator Lucie Reeves-Smith describes it, be worth adding to the Collection? It was, declared the Gallery – digging into its Acquisition Fund which receives matching funds from the Balnaves Foundation.
Arthur Streeton, Sydney from Mosman, c.1914–18. Courtesy Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney
Coming from the artist David Boyd’s estate, though, the sketch was just a little battered. Fortunately, a Conservation Fund covered the efforts of International Conservation Services, which was able to unstick the delicate paper from its backing board, iron out creases and bleach patches of chemical burning, and – miracle of miracles – discover yet another little rotter on the back! Sadly this work can’t be displayed in a two-way frame because the paper is too weak. But a photo of what is almost certainly the Hawkesbury railway bridge sits beside the sketch.
As Colahan puts it in her report to the Council, “What is so charming about this sketch entitled Sydney from Mosman (Streeton appears to spell it, Sndney) is the addition of quick colour washes, particularly the artist’s characteristic blue. Whilst the wash is just a whisper, it suggests the making of a later oil with the artist’s sparkling, fully worked blue harbour.”
Which raises the question as to when the undated sketch was made? For, although Melbourne claims Streeton as theirs, he actually spent more of his painting life in Sydney – much at the Curlew Camp on Sirius Cove in Mosman. He was certainly there in 1914/15 before heading off to London to be a medical orderly, then a War Artist. But he was also there in 1926 when a glorious canvas called Cremorne Point, Sydney Harbour was painted. It features the Point’s lighthouse prominently as in the sketch, but the encroaching city, just feint tower-blocks in the sketch, has been brought right into focus. And there’s no doubt that Streeton loved his bushy hide-away, campaigning vigorously against a proposed coalmine on nearby Bradleys Head. Those distant blocks are now a looming threat. For Mosman’s turn-of-the-century Artists Camps weren’t inviolate. The Edwards Beach camp at Balmoral had closed when daylight swimming was legalised in 1904. And Curlew Camp died in 1912 when Taronga Zoo was given the land on the ridge above it.
But what a fine base for the finest images of Sydney Harbour it had been. With fellow “Bohemians” such as Tom Roberts, Streeton had had to make do there with just a full-time cook, lunches involving “two big bottles of claret grown in Australia” and a billiards tent! Of course, Sir Arthur Streeton ended up in the bushy Dandenongs outside Melbourne. But surely his heart still lay in Curlew Camp. Which Mosman Art Gallery is commemorating with an exhibition to accompany the Between the Heads: Views of Middle Harbour show that features its new Streeton sketch. Curlew Camp opens on 17 May, featuring contemporary artists such as Abdul Abdullah, Fiona Lowry and Thea Anamara Perkins reflecting on that historic site. And for plein air types like Streeton, Mosman has a permanent ten-kilometre Art Trail that attempts to identify the actual sites where works from the Balnaves Collection were originally painted.
Jeremy Eccles is a specialist arts commentator with a long-term engagement with First Nations culture.
artgallery.nsw.gov.au
mosmanartgallery.org.au
Originally published in print – Art Almanac, May 2025 issue, pp. 38–9
