TISCHBAUER, ALFRED LOUIS (1853-1922)

"Flooding Creek, Sale, Gippsland" (c.1895-1899)
Oil on canvas
37 x 50cm
Signed lower right
*exhibited at Our Art Galleries, Melbourne, 1899
*private collection, Sydney
 
Tischbauer is a forgotten, award-winning French-born Australian Colonial & Theatre Artist. He trained at the famous L'Ecole De Beaux Arts in Paris as a scene painter and designer, & worked at the Paris Opera before becoming involved in the Paris Communes of 1871, resulting in him being transported to New Caledonia as punishment. He came to Sydney in the late 1870s with his friend, prominent artist, Lucien Henry. He held his first Australian solo exhibition  'Sketches in Water-colours for Churches & Apartments’ in 1880, & worked as an instructor at the Sydney School Of Arts & Technical College. He befriended young Australian artist, John Peter Russell who had recently returned from Paris, where he had befriended & studied with Henri De Toulouse Lautrec, Emile Bernard & Vincent Van Gogh. At the Third Annual NSW Art Society Exhibition in 1883, Tischbauer showed his greatest masterpiece "View Of George St., From the North Side of Wynyard St. Looking South" (1883), a large, detailed work, in which he included a small rendering of his friend John Peter Russell in the foreground (image 5, centre). The work is now owned by the State Library Of NSW. The same year, Russell showed his "Portrait Of Alfred Tischbauer Esq." (1883) one of the handful of portraits he completed in his lifetime. As you can see (image 3), Russell's depiction of a wild Tischbauer (left) is not unlike his incredible portrait of his friend Van Gogh (right) he completed three years later after he returned to Europe. Tischbauer continued to exhibit in the late 1880s, but turned his focus to scenery painting for the theatre, to great acclaim and attention of the National Press. However his luck would soon change. In late 1891, Tischbauer’s theatrical design career faltered after he was named in the suicide note of Selina Palmer; a young woman, employed by Alfred Dampier, whom Tischbauer had befriended; and had to endure public scrutiny of the nature of their friendship during the coronial inquest. Tischbauer continued his work for Dampier after the tragedy, until the collapse of Dampier’s business in 1893 caused a rift between the two men. Following this debacle, Tischenbauer was employed as Director of the Sale School Of Arts, in Gippsland, Victoria. In January 1897 he married Harriet Watson at Footscray in Melbourne. At the start of the twentieth century Tischbauer left for New York where he became a successful scenic artist and theatrical designer. Tischbauer and his wife later moved to California, where he worked for the American Film Company in Santa Barbara. He died in Los Angeles in February 1922 and was buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills. Harriet Tischbauer returned to Australia later in 1922.
 
This interesting landscape was produced when Tischbauer was Director at the Sale School Of Arts, shortly before he left for America to pursue success as a set designer. This work was exhibited at 'The Valuable Collection Of Oil Paintings by Mr Alfred Tischbauer' at Our Art Galleries, 361 Collins Street, Melbourne in December 1899.