LEASON, PERCY (1889-1959)

"New England Farm" (c.1950)
Oil on canvas board
41 x 51cm
Signed lower
*Castlemaine Art Museum Collection
*private collection, Sydney
 
Leason was an importrant Australian Modernist. He trained at the National Gallery School & the Victorian Arts Society, under Bernard Hall & Frederick McCubbin. He worked as an illustrator on The Bulletin & Punch, and despite being Australia’s highest paid commercial artist at the time, he chose to study painting with Max Meldrum and adopt his Tonalist ideas. His paintings of Australian landscapes & portraits of Victorian Aborigines were exhibited widely, and many were purchased by National Galleries & Institutions for their private collections. This impressive piece was part of a series of nude studies completed when he was art instructor at the Salmagundi Club in NYC. Originally from the collection of the Castlemaine Art Museum.