WHEELER, CHARLES (1881-1977)

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“Study For Noon Dreams” (1926)

pastel

19 x 34cm

Details on verso

*private collection, Melbourne

Wheeler OBE was a prominent, Archibald Prize-winning, New Zealand-born Australian Impressionist & Portraitist He trained as an artist at the Working Men's College and the NGV School. During WWI he served with the Royal Fusiliers in France, winning the Distinguished Conduct Medal at Vimy in 1916. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in London and the Paris Salon before returning to Melbourne, where he taught at the Melbourne Tech School and the NGV School. He became drawing master at the NGV School in 1935; from 1939 to 1945 he was painting master and Head of the School. He soon became well-known for his nudes and portraits, winning the Archibald Prize in 1933 for a portrait of the popular Melbourne-based writer Ambrose Pratt. He continued painting well into his old age, turning late in life to impressionistic landscapes.

The finished oil painting was purchased by the AGNSW in 1926 from the Royal Art Society Exhibition. At the time, the work was considered the finest nude painting in Australia, & represented Australia at the Imperial Gallery in London featuring the greatest British & Dominion Contemporary paintings in the World in 1928!! It's sister-work "And So The Story Ends" (1927) is on permanent display at the Art Gallery Of South Australia.