TOM ROBERTS

The artist
Duncan Anderson, gift from the above; thence by descent to his son, Alick Anderson
Savill Galleries, Sydney (trading as Gordon Marsh Gallery, Double Bay) circa 1983; purchased from the above
Mr R.Ellison, Sydney; purchased from the above
Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne; purchased from the above
Private collection, Sydney; purchased from the above

Exhibition and Sale of Paintings Previous to Leaving Australia, Society of Artists, Sydney, November 1900, cat. 3 (3g.)
Golden Summers: Heidelberg and beyond, National Gallery of Victoria
Tom Roberts, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, October 1996; Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, November 1996; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, February 1997; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, April 1997; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, June, 1997

Helen Topliss, Tom Roberts: A catalogue raisonné (2 vols.), Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1985, no. 217, vol. I p. 131, vol. II (illus.)
Jane Clark and Bridget Whitelaw, Golden Summers: Heidelberg and beyond, International Cultural Corporation of Australia, Melbourne, 1985, p. 142 (illus.)
Ron Radford (ed.), Tom Roberts, Art Gallery of South Australia and Art Exhibitions Australia, Adelaide, 1996, pp. 101 (illus.), 205 (illus.)

The work is framed in an ornate gold traditional style frame. The work is in good original condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This exquisite panel painting is one of Tom Roberts' most convincing and compelling impressions. It is of particular significance in the history of Roberts' art, both for its connection to the famous shearing picture The Golden Fleece (1894, Art Gallery of New South Wales), and for its being dedicated to his great friend and supporter Duncan Anderson.

Duncan Anderson was the second youngest of the seven children of Dr Colin Anderson, a Scottish squatter who settled at 'Newstead' station, near Glen Innes, New South Wales, early in the 1840s. Although educated in England and trained as a barrister, Duncan retained a close interest in the family property. In 1888 he and his brother John (the only survivors of four boys) divided the 30,000 hectare estate between them, Duncan taking the half which contained the original homestead, now renamed 'Newstead North.'

Details of their initial connection are unknown, but presumably Anderson and Roberts met after the latter's move from Melbourne to Sydney in 1891. Although Roberts' senior by seven years, Duncan Anderson shared the artist's pleasure in literature, music (he was a gifted cornet player) and tennis, and was to become a good friend, 'as close a soul mate as Roberts was ever to make.'¹

By the mid-1890s Roberts had become a regular and welcome visitor to the New England property, writing to Fred McCubbin in February 1895: 'I was very happy to come back (to 'Newstead')... Anderson seemed very pleased to see me up, & is very kind all through and is keen about my working.'² It was while staying at 'Newstead North' that Roberts conceived and part-executed three of his most celebrated 'national pictures': The Golden Fleece; Bailed Up (1895, Art Gallery of New South Wales); and In a Corner on the Macintyre (1895, National Gallery of Australia). Anderson was also the subject of one of Roberts' 'Familiar Figures and Faces' panel portraits, and he appears in both The Golden Fleece (as himself) and Bailed Up (as the bushranger 'Thunderbolt').

The present work dates from the summer of 1893-94, presumably not long after Roberts' arrival at Newstead on 23 December, but before the end of the New England shearing season the following month. Ron Radford suggests that it 'might have been given to Anderson in the festive season.'³ Certainly by February Roberts had begun work on the major picture The Golden Fleece, probably combining on-the-spot sketches of the now-empty 'Newstead' shed with the many figure drawings he had made on 'Brocklesby' station some years previously, in preparation for Shearing the Rams (1888-90, National Gallery of Victoria). Shearing Shed, Newstead is in fact the 'outside-looking-in' reverse of the 'insidelooking-out' space of The Golden Fleece, the sunlit sheepyards and landscape visible at the left of the later, larger painting. In this dashing sketch, however, the focus is not on narrative and nationalism, but on tonal values and impressionist acuity.

The painting shows a side view of the 'Newstead' shearing shed. The shed was relatively small (20 by 6 m.), and having been initially constructed in 1857, was in the older style, built of cypress pine logs and slabs, in contrast to the vast milled-board and corrugated-iron shearing factories of the late 1880s wool boom. The view is from the north, the time bright midday.

Extending out from the darkness of the hessianshaded shearing board and running down a slight slope towards the left of the picture is the post-and-rail fence of the yards, within which dabs of white and cream indicate the day's progress, a mass of freshly-shorn sheep. The brightness of their exposed wool contrasts with the dusty dun-grey of an unshorn wether that has evidently got loose and stands stupidly on the near side of the fence. Above the mob milling in the yards hangs a cloud of hoof-raised dust which, in a bravura piece of tonal control, drifts into and merges with the summer-brown foliage of a stand of eucalypts in the centre of the picture. Then, extending left from these treetops, a bank of cumulus completes the circle, hanging in the hard, pale ultramarine sky like a fleece above a sorting table, a soft foil to the perspective parallelogram of the shearing shed roof. Roberts' response to The Argus editorial critique of Shearing the Rams has been widely reproduced in the art-historical literature, but bears repeating here:

'... If I had been a poet instead of a worker with the brush, I should have described the scattered flocks on sunlit plains and gum-covered ranges, the coming of spring, the gradual massing of the sheep towards that one centre, the woolshed, through which the accumulated growth and wealth of the year is carried; the shouts of the men, the galloping of horses and the barking of dogs as the thousands are driven, half seen, through the hot dust cloud, to the yards; then the final act, and the dispersion of the denuded sheep; but being circumscribed by my art it was only possible to take one view, to give expression to one portion of all this...'⁴

As the present work shows, it was in fact possible to take many views, albeit some limited to the oil sketch format. Shearing shed, 'Newstead' is a deft and spirited capture of 'the final act, and the dispersion of the denuded sheep', and makes a delightful grace note and footnote to compliment the artist's two great wool industry pictures.

1. Humphrey McQueen, Tom Roberts, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1996, p. 378
2. Tom Roberts to Fred McCubbin, 1 February 1895, in 'Letters ftom Tom Roberts to Frederick McCubbin, La Trobe Library Journal, no. 7, April 1971, p. 64
3. Ron Radford (ed.), Tom Roberts, Art Gallery of South Australia and Art Exhibitions Australia, Adelaide, 1996, p. 205
4. Tom Roberts, letter to the Editor, The Argus, 4 July 1890.