Painting and Sculpture

John Mather (artist)

John Mather (1848 – 18 February 1916) was a Scottish-Australian plein-air painter and etcher. Mather was a Scottish artist who emigrated to Melbourne in 1878. He quickly established himself and became an Associate of the Victorian Academy of Arts, exhibiting his work with the academy and subsequent art associations and societies for many years. Mather exhibited his works in Victoria as well other Australian states and internationally. Mather was one of the early practitioners of painting en plein air in Victoria and his work predates that of other better-known plein air artists. Mather practised the Scottish plein-air tradition and the close study of nature. After emigrating to Melbourne, he sought to analyse and faithfully represent the light and colour of the Australian landscape. Modifying earlier European tones, his paintings came closer to visual truth than any Australian landscapes produced before the later widespread adoption of plein-air methods. Through his desire to realistically reproduce picturesque scenes, he developed a distinctive and independent artistic style. Together with other artists, in 1886 he established the Australian Artists Association, which was described as "a distinctively Australian school of landscape painters ... who look at colonial scenery with their own eyes, and not through European spectacles." Mather worked towards bringing the Academy and Association together to form the Victorian Artists Society in 1888 and served as its president for many years. In 1892 he was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Public Library, Museums and National Gallery of Victoria. John Mather was a member of the Felton Bequest Committee from 1905 to 1916 and as trustee, strongly supported Australian art. Mather was a landscape painter of considerable reputation during his lifetime, and was a celebrated teacher. However a little more than decade after his death he was almost forgotten. Mather died on 18 February 1916 and lay in a grave with no memorial until 2023 when a plaque was added to his grave simply stating: Mr John Mather 1848 – 1916 The beauty of his Art endures. The words, his Art endures, refers to his painting and etching but also the art he nurtured as a mentor, teacher and one of the founding fathers of art in Victoria.

Also on this shelf

See also

• ▸Early works of Vincent van Gogh
• ▸Ancient Egyptian literature
• ▸General Augereau at the Bridge of Arcole

Uncatalogued shelf

Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.