English-born Australian Painter, 1854-1914 was an Australian landscape artist and a member of the Heidelberg School of Australian impressionists. Withers was born at Handsworth, Staffordshire, the son of Edwin Withers. He showed an early desire to paint, but objection was made to this by his father. It is not known what occupation he followed in England, but in 1882 he arrived in Australia with the intention of going on the land. After working for about 18 months on a farm, Withers removed to Melbourne and obtained a position as draughtsman in a firm of printers. He then took up his painting again, and began to exhibit with the Victorian Academy of Arts afterwards merged in the Victorian Artists' Society. In 1887 Withers went to Europe. There he was married to Miss F. Flinn and studied for some months at the Academie Julian, Paris. He returned to Australia with his wife in June 1888 having been commissioned to do black and white work for Messrs Fergusson and Mitchell of Melbourne. His most important work in this way will be found in the illustrations to Edmund Finn's, The Chronicles of Early Melbourne. Withers settled down at first at Kew, a suburb of Melbourne, and then near Heidelberg on the other side of the river Yarra. He became friendly with Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder, Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin and other leading artists of the period. He began to sell a few pictures, but the collapse of the land boom put an end to his illustrative work. He obtained some work as a drawing and painting master in schools, and in 1891 opened a studio in Collins-street west, where he held his first private exhibition.   Related Paintings of Walter Withers :. | Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden at the Battle of Breitenfeld | On the Eltham Road | Farmer-s girl | The Yarra below Eaglemont | Fossickers |
Related Artists:
Leon Frederic
1895-1897
Floris van Dijck
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1575-1651 Dutch painter and draughtsman. He is thought to have been a pupil of Rembrandt in Amsterdam c. 1650. There is no documentary evidence for this, but his earliest dated painting, the Presentation in the Temple shows that he had certainly seen examples of Rembrandt work. He was an eclectic artist, given to following several models simultaneously. This is evident from two versions of Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath; one (1655-60; Copenhagen, Stat. Mus. Kst) is painted in horizontal format in the style of Barent Fabritius, while the other (1655-60; Milwaukee, WI, A. Bader priv. col., see Sumowski, 1983, no. 362) features large half-length figures in the manner of Nicolaes Maes. In another biblical scene, Benjamin and Judah (1655-60; Chicago, IL, A. Inst.), he followed the example of Rembrandt. His best works, such as Saying Grace (1655-60; Hannover, Nieders?chs. Landesmus.) and the Old Prophetess (1655-60; Leipzig, Mus. Bild. Kst), show old women either praying or sleeping and confirm that Maes was his main source of inspiration. Similar subjects are represented in the drawings attributed to him (e.g. Old Woman Seated, Holding a Book; New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib.). In the late 1650s van Dijck also seems to have been influenced by the genre paintings of Gabriel Metsu and above all by Quiringh van Brekelenkam, as in Hermit Praying in a Cave (late 1650s; St Petersburg, Hermitage) and Family Saying Grace (late 1650s; Stockholm, Nmus.).
Roger Van Der Weyden
c.1399-1464 Rogier van der Weyden was the son of Henri de le Pasture, a cutler in Tournai, and Agn?s de Watreloz. His birthdate is estimated from the facts that he was stated to be 35 in April 1435 and 43 in September 1441. Before or in 1427 he married Elisabeth Goffaert (c. 1405-77), whose father was a prosperous shoemaker in Brussels. Rogier may have lived for a time in Brussels: his eldest child Cornelis (b 1427) was sometimes referred to as 'de Bruxella' but was not necessarily a native of Brussels. On 5 March 1427 'Rogelet de le Pasture, natif de Tournai' was apprenticed to the Tournai painter Robert Campin. This Rogelet duly completed his apprenticeship in 1431 and on 1 August 1432 became a master of the Tournai guild. Despite much debate, it would appear that Rogelet was Rogier van der Weyden, though it has also been argued that in 1427 Rogier was a married man well past the normal age of apprenticeship and that Rogelet must have been a second Tournai painter of the same name. JACQUES DARET, however, was in his twenties when in 1428 he was apprenticed to Campin, and other instances can be cited of married apprentices. The political situation at Tournai in 1427-8 was unusual, and the guild system was not functioning normally.