In the early twentieth century, there was much speculation about what was going on behind the curtains of Melbourne bohemia. Popular reports of the artist’s studios framed the way in which their way of life was imagined. This exhibition brings back to life Melbourne’s studios from the 1880s to the 1940s, through paintings, photographs and period studio artefacts.

Hundreds of Melbourne artists chose to have their studios in inner city buildings in the first decades of the twentieth century. However, the dominance of landscape painting in Australian art has meant that the role of the studio in their practice has often been neglected. Whether lavishly decorated or Spartan and grubby, the studio was a multi-purpose space well before the idea was fashionable. Artists worked in their studios, but they also often ate and slept there. They were usually private, but to earn money by selling work or taking students, artists sometimes opened their studios to the public.

City Museum at Old Treasury is just across the road from Melbourne’s most famous studio complex – Grosvenor Chambers at 9 Collins Street. Established in 1888 with the explicit purpose of providing a location for artistic endeavours, Grosvenor Chambers housed the studios of Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Clara Southern, Charles Conder, E. Phillips Fox, John Longstaff, Max Meldrum, Ola Cohn and later on Mirka Mora, Albert Tucker and Wolfgang Sievers, as well as dozens of less well-known painters, sculptors and photographers. A number of items that relate to Grosvenor Chambers are featured in the exhibition.

A fascinating selection of paintings and photographs take you inside studios from the early twentieth century. Melbourne’s teaching studios are a particular focus in the exhibition, from the well-known George Bell school to the influential teaching studio of Meldrum-school painters Archibald and Amalie Colquhoun. The exhibition reunites a number of Lindsay Bernard Hall interiors that depict his grand and lofty space at the National Gallery School.

The exhibition also includes original equipment from the studios of leading Melbourne artists, including Harley Griffiths Jnr’s studio screen, palettes and paintboxes once used by Archibald Colquhoun, a sketching ‘donkey’ from the Victorian Artists’ Society and a large mahogany studio easel used by both John Longstaff and William Dargie. Other period equipment including palettes, paintboxes, charcoal, pastels, pencils and brushes complete the picture of the period studio.

Perils of the Studio
Inside the artistic affairs of bohemian Melbourne

By Alex Taylor
$59.95

Available at City Museum Melbourne and at all good bookstores

This exhibition coincides with the release of a major publication exploring the artists studio in Australian art. Focusing on Melbourne’s inner-city bohemia, including the famous Grosvenor Chambers at 9 Collins Street, this major publication is the first attempt to examine the role of the studio in Australian art. This unique cultural history combines stories and anecdotes drawn from period newspapers and magazines with reproductions of rarely-seen works by painters, photographers and cartoonists. More than 200 pages in length and published in hard cover, Perils of the Studio is an essential addition to any Australian art lover’s library.

Published by Australian Scholarly Press with the State Library of Victoria
Supported by the City of Melbourne