Charles Conder

Charles Conder (1868–1909) was an English-born painter who was a central figure of the Heidelberg School in Australia before returning to Europe, where he became known for his decorative paintings on silk fans and his association with Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley's circle in 1890s London and Paris. Born in London, he trained in Sydney and was a close associate of Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton in the Heidelberg School. His early Australian paintings — Dandenongs from Heidelberg (1889), Impressionists' camp (1889), Going home (The Gray and Gold) (1888) — show a highly personal approach to Impressionist colour and atmosphere, more lyrical and delicate than his colleagues. He left Australia in 1890 and moved to Paris, where he studied under Constant and became closely associated with Toulouse-Lautrec, Whistler, and the Symbolist milieu. His paintings on silk, typically fan-shaped, depicted fêtes galantes in a Watteau-influenced mode and became enormously fashionable in the London and Paris art worlds of the 1890s. His health, undermined by syphilis, declined rapidly from around 1900 and he died at forty-one.

Conder's style is distinctive for its light, iridescent quality — an impression of coloured light dissolved into atmosphere. His Australian landscapes have a luminous, pearl-like quality unlike the bolder approaches of Roberts or Streeton. His Paris fan paintings are delicate, witty, and consciously artificial, inhabiting the aesthetic twilight of Symbolism and the fête galante tradition.

Conder occupies a unique position as a link between Australian Impressionism and the European Symbolist movement. His fan paintings were celebrated objects of art nouveau design and his circle in Paris and London connected Australian art to the European avant-garde. His early death prevented a more substantial contribution, but his sensitivity to light and colour influenced Australian painting for decades.