National Gallery of Victoria Art School 1886-1890,
Known for
Romanticism female portraits, Genre paintings
Notable work
Flood Sufferings, Meditation, The Golden Age, Inspiration, Idyll of the Sea, Portrait of Frederika Meyer (all held in National Gallery of Victoria)
Awards
Winner of 1890 National Gallery of Victoria Travelling Scholarship
Abbey Altson (1866–1948), also Abby, Aby or Abe Altson, who may have been born Abraham Altson,[1] was a British artist known for his Romanticism female portraits & Genre paintings.
Biography
Altson was born in England, the only child of Ethel (née Hatrick) and David Alston[2] and travelled to Australia in the early 1880s. He joined the bohemian Buonarotti Club (1883–87) as one of its youngest members and received encouragement from senior artists.[3] He studied at the National Gallery School 1885-90 and in 1890 he was awarded its Travelling Scholarship.[4] Altson's winning painting was named Flood Sufferings and gained attention through its connection to the recent flood disaster of Bourke and other towns on the Darling River.[5] He went to Paris the following year and spent the rest of his life overseas,[6] often traveling between England and India, and migrating to the US in 1939.[4]
Altson was a successful painter who after winning the 1890 National Gallery of Victoria Travelling Scholarship, moved to London. The winners of the scholarship were required to paint 2 copies of old masters and one original. Altson chose to copy 2 portraits, Van Dyck's Portrait of a Lady of Rank with her daughter from the Louvre,[7][8] followed by Rembrandt's An Old Man from London's National Gallery. Altson exhibited in Société des Artistes Français in 1892, 1893 & 1896.[9]
Legacy
Alston's work featured in the National Gallery of Victoria traveling exhibition Golden Summers, 30 October 1985 – 27 January 1986.[10]
^Alan McCulloch (1984). Encyclopedia of Australian Art. Hutchinson. ISBN009148300X.
^New York City Department of Records & Information Services; New York City, New York; New York City Death Certificates
^Mead, Stephen F. (December 2011). "The Search for Artistic Professionalism in Melbourne: the activities of the Buonarotti Club, 1883 -1887". The Latrobe Journal. 88.
^Clark, Jane; Whitelaw, Bridget; National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne) (1985). Golden summers : Heidelberg and beyond. The Rocks, Sydney: International Cultural Corporation of Australia. ISBN9780642097811. OCLC731056695.