POLE, LEON (1871-1851)

**PRICE ON APPLICATION**
 
“Figure On The Rocks” (c.1900)
Watercolour
29 x 14.5cm
Signed lower left
*private collection, Sydney
 
Pole is a forgotten Australian Impressionist. Born in Adelaide, South Australia, Pole moved to Melbourne where, between in 1888 and 1892, he studied under Frederick McCubbin at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School. While still a student, Pole joined Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder, Tom Roberts and other members of the Heidelberg School at their artists' camp at Eaglemont, Heidelberg. In 1890, Pole joined Heidelberg School artist Walter Withers at Charterisville, where he remained for several years. Pole's works are SO rare, this is only the third example of his work I could locate, the other two are in the NGV. His legacy has been overshadowed by his Heidelberg School compatriots, however, his influence and relevance is unquestionable in the development of Australian Impressionism. Pole's best-known painting, The Village Laundress (1891), sold at auction in 1987 for $210,000, regarded as a high price for a work by a relatively obscure Australian artist. It is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. Pole was an acclaimed muralist, caricaturist and "lightning sketcher", and, alongside artists such as Max Meldrum, & brothers Lionel & Norman Lindsay, formed part of a bohemian group in Melbourne known as the Cannibal Club. Ahead of the 1901 opening of the first Parliament of Australia at Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building, Pole, in collaboration with three other artists, painted largescale murals of allegorical maidens throughout the venue, which remain to this day. In his later years he enjoyed some success in England & the United States before dying in Canada in 1951.