WHEELER, CHARLES (1881-1977)

“The Golden Hour” (c.1935)
Oil on canvas
57 x 79.5cm
Details on verso
*private collection, Sydney
 
Wheeler OBE was a prominent, Archibald Prize-winning, New Zealand-born Australian Impressionist & Portraitist He trained as an artist at the Working Men's College and the NGV School. During WWI he served with the Royal Fusiliers in France, winning the Distinguished Conduct Medal at Vimy in 1916. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in London and the Paris Salon before returning to Melbourne, where he taught at the Melbourne Tech School and the NGV School. He became drawing master at the NGV School in 1935; from 1939 to 1945 he was painting master and Head of the School. He soon became well-known for his nudes and portraits, winning the Archibald Prize in 1933 for a portrait of the popular Melbourne-based writer Ambrose Pratt. He continued painting well into his old age, turning late in life to impressionistic landscapes. This stunning piece is part of a series of Impressionistic works Wheeler produced in the 1930s, featuring bathers by a river, with a distant campfire in the centre. It is one of the largest Wheeler produced.