MUIR AULD, JAMES (1879-1942)

"Homestead Amongst The Trees" (c.1900)
oil on canvas
29.5 x 37cm
signed lower right
*private collection, Sydney
 
Auld was a well respected Australian Impressionist painter. He studied with J. S. Watkins and later he joined Julian Ashton's Sydney Art School. About 1906 J. Muir Auld began to show oils at the annual Royal Art Society of New South Wales exhibitions, but he first became known in Sydney as a black and white artist, contributing regularly to the Sydney Mail and the Bulletin.  Auld exhibited frequently with the Society of Artists, Sydney, of which he was a member. In the 1920s he joined the well-known commercial art firm, Smith & Julius, and illustrated several books. He was awarded the 1935 Wynne Prize for 'Winter Morning', a study of trees and sky which had 'a stimulating sense of wind, and flying cloud' and showed the artist's partial adoption of the palette knife. Auld had three one-man exhibitions at the Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, in 1928, 1936 and 1938, and had also exhibited in London and Paris. He was a foundation member of the Australian Academy of Art in 1938. In December 1942, the National Art Gallery of New South Wales held a memorial exhibition for Auld after his death from tuberculosis. Self-portraits are in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales; he is also represented in public collections in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Armidale and Manly.