E. Phillips Fox
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E. Phillips Fox | |
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Victoria, Australia | |
Died | 8 October 1915 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia | (aged 50)
Other names | Emanuel Phillips Fox |
Known for | Painting |
Spouse | Ethel Carrick (m. 1905) |
Emanuel Phillips Fox (12 March 1865 – 8 October 1915) was an Australian impressionist painter. After studying at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in Melbourne, Fox travelled to Paris to study in 1886. He remained in Europe until 1892, when he returned to Melbourne and led what is considered the second phase of the Heidelberg School, an impressionist art movement which had grown in the city during his absence. He spent over a decade in Europe in the early 20th century before finally settling in Melbourne, where he died.
Education
Emanuel Phillips Fox was born on 12 March 1865 to the photographer Alexander Fox and Rosetta Phillips
In 1886, he travelled to Paris and enrolled at the Académie Julian under William-Adolphe Bouguereau , where he gained first prize in his year for design,[1] and École des Beaux-Arts (1887–1890), where his masters included Jean-Léon Gérôme, who with Bouguereau was among the most famous artists of the time. While at the Beaux Arts, he was awarded a first prize for painting.[1] He was greatly influenced by the fashionable school of en plein air Impressionism. He exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1890, and returned to Melbourne the same year.[1]
Australia
In October 1892, Fox opened the Melbourne School of Art with
Europe
In 1901, he was given a commission under the Gilbee bequest to paint a historical picture of The Landing of Captain Cook for the Melbourne gallery. One of the conditions of the bequest was that the picture must be painted overseas and Fox accordingly left for London.[1]
He explained his decision to base himself in the European art world in a 1903 letter to Frederick McCubbin: "I am quite certain that the only way is to exhibit alongside the best of the work here, and that one man shows, and colonial or Australian exhibitions in London are of very little good." Both the
On 9 May 1905, he married the artist Ethel Carrick in St Peter's Church, Ealing. They toured Italy and Spain, then in 1908 settled in Paris, where he was elected an associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.[1] He returned to Melbourne on a visit in that year and held a successful one-man show at the Guildhall gallery.[1] Two years later he became a full member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, the first Australian artist to attain that honour.[1] He was exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy.[1] In 1912 he was elected a member of the International Society of Painters and in the same year spent some time painting in Spain and Algeria.[1]
Return to Australia
In 1913, he returned to Australia, marking the occasion with an exhibition of some seventy works.
A final aspect of Fox's oeuvre worth noting are his official commissions. The Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, the most important of these works, holds more than a hint of his teacher Gérôme; and every Australian might be surprised to find that Fox made a copy of Nathaniel Dance's Portrait of Captain Cook, an icon probably so ubiquitous as to have sunk unnoticed but ever-present into the national psyche.
Death
Fox died of cancer in a Fitzroy hospital on 8 October 1915, aged 50. His wife survived him by 36 years, but there were no children.
Critical assessment
When compared with Charles Conder and Sir Arthur Streeton, Fox shows more fascination with the "effects of dappled light" than to the "sunny vistas" one finds in the other two painters' Heidelberg paintings. He is described as an artist who "remained committed to a late nineteenth century aesthetic that paid homage to Impressionism while retaining the tonal values of academic realism".[6]
Paintings
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Portrait of my Cousin (1893)
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A Love Story (1903)
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Al Fresco (1904)
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Venice (1907)
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The Ferry (1911)
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After the Bath (1911), possibly with Edith Anderson as the model
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Nasturtiums (1912), with model Anderson
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On the Balcony (1912), with model Anderson
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The Green Parasol (1912), with model Anderson
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Serle, Percival (1949). "Fox, Emanuel Phillips". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.
- ^ "Window to the shared worlds of Emanuel Phillips and Ethel Carrick Fox" by Christopher Allen, The Australian (30 July 2011)
- ^ Mead, Stephen F. (December 2011). "The Search for Artistic Professionalism in Melbourne: the activities of the Buonarotti Club, 1883 -1887". The Latrobe Journal. 88.
- ^ "Works | NGV | View Work".
- ^ Forward, Roy. "Fox: Farewell in a Garden – E. Phillips Fox, The Green Parasol, c.1912" (Research Paper No. 23). National Gallery of Australia.
- Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 4 February 2012.
Further reading
- Eagle, M: The oil paintings of E Phillips Fox in the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1997 ISBN 0-642-13086-8
- Fox, Len, E. Phillips Fox and his family published by the author, 1985 ISBN 0-9589239-1-4
- Zubans, R., E. Phillips Fox 1865–1915, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1994 ISBN 0-7241-0171-3
- Zubans, R., E. Phillips Fox, His Life and Art, ISBN 0-522-84653-X
External links
- "E. (Emanuel) Phillips Fox", Gravesite at the Brighton General Cemetery (Victoria)
- E. Phillips Fox at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
- E. Phillips Fox at the National Gallery of Victoria
- A Love Story (1903) Archived 21 February 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Art Gallery of Ballarat
- Biography
- Emanuel Phillips Fox at the Art Renewal Center