HARVEY, EDMUND (1907-1994)

**ON HOLD - EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST**
 
"Seated Model" (c.1940)
oil on canvas board
21.5 x 29cm
signed lower right 
*Woolloomooloo Gallery
*Wrobel Collection

British-born Harvey begun evening classes in drawing under Henry Gibbons at East Sydney Technical College (ESTC) in Sydney. That same year he commenced full-time art studies with Julian Ashton at the Sydney Art School. In 1925, at the age of eighteen, he was sent to Paris, where he became a full-time student at the Académie Julian, and also took evening classes at Académie Colarossi de la Grande Chaumière. In 1926 he studied in Florence, the Academia Della Bella Arte in Rome, and at the Chelsea Polytechnic in London. In 1927 Harvey returned to Sydney. From 1927 to 1928 he was assistant to George Washington Thomas Lambert, ARA. Harvey was elected a member of the Society of Artists in 1932. When Edmund Harvey held his first exhibition in Melbourne in 1934, Arthur Streeton hailed him as 'a clever young painter from Sydney.' Harvey had made his debut at the Macquarie Galleries only the year before. In 1935 Harvey and Arthur Murch founded the School of Decorative Arts, situated at the corner of Liverpool and Castlereagh Streets, Sydney. He was a leading teacher at the East Sydney Technical College for 37 years preceding his death. He was a close friend of Sir William Dobell. Harvey's works were shown in numerous exhibitions, and are included, among others, in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
 
This impressive study was likely completed whilst Harvey was working at East Sydney Technical College, and original sold through the Woolloomooloo Gallery (Wrobel Collection).