OBITUARY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20979, 16 September 1931, Page 9

OBITUARY.

MR. TOM ROBERTS. (Received September 15, 10.35 p.m.) MELBOURNE, Sept. 15. Tho death has occurred of Mr. Tom Roberts, a leading artist and pioneer of the modern school of Australian open-air landscape painting, aged 75. He was a native of Dorchester, England. The late Mr. Tom Roberts, who was born on March 9, 1856, went, to Australia from England in 1869 and studied at the Melbourne Gallery Schools. He returned to London and was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools. Going back to Melbourne in 1885 he formed an artists' camp at Box Hill. Later he established a similar camp at 'Eaglemont, Heidelberg, Victoria. In 1903 he returned to London for sittings from the Prince of Wales (now King George) and the Princess and suite for the painting " The First Commonwealth Parliament," now in St. James' Palace. Mr. Roberts served with tho Royal Army Medical Corps, at tho 3rd L.G. Hospital, Wandsworth, until after the declaration of peace. He visited Australia for a year, painting and exhibiting, and returned there from England in 1923 to settle in the country. His Australian pictures include " The Golden Fleece" and "In the Shadow of the Hills " (Sydney gallery) and "The Breakaway" and a portrait of Sir Henry Parkes (Adelaide gallery). Also he was commissioned by the Commonwealth Government to paint for the Canberra gallery a portrait of Henry Kendall, Australian poet.