TOM ROBERTS (1856-1931). - Tom Roberts painting on canvas...

TOM ROBERTS (1856-1931). - Tom Roberts painting on canvas of a little girl holding her hands on what

is believed to be a fence. Signed by Tom Roberts in bottom right hand corner, mounted and framed. Corner crease underneath mount with paint loss in various parts.The size of the painting is: 16x10.75 inches. Supplied with coa.Roberts was the first major Australian painter to be selected to study at the Royal Academy of Arts which he attended from 1881 to 1884, benefiting especially from tuition in anatomy and perspective. To help make ends meet he contributed illustrations to the Graphic.Later he joined Charles Conder and Arthur Streeton in the Eaglemont camp, where his influence on his fellow artists culminated in the historic nine-inch-by-five-inch Impression Exhibition of 1889[x=#8212/]a showing in Melbourne of Impressionist landscapes painted on the lids of cedar cigar boxes. In spite of the tide of protest against this challenge to conventional art, the Heidelberg school, consisting of Roberts and his fellow Impressionists, came to dominate Australian art for more than 30 years. Roberts is best known as a painter of Australian rural life.