1851 - 1942

Renowned teacher and artist Julian Ashton moved to Melbourne from Surrey, England with his wife Eliza and their one-year-old son Julian in 1878. He was a prominent figure in the Heidelberg School of painting and travelled and sketched extensively throughout Australia. He and his family moved to Tamarama in 1883, and he went on to create many sketches and paintings of the Bondi–Tamarama area and to make the family home a hub for many great Australian artists.

He began teaching privately in 1886 and between 1887 and 1892 was president of the Art Society of New South Wales, at which premises he conducted art classes from 1892 to 1895. In 1890, he established his own school, the ‘Academy Julian’, which for a long time was known as the Sydney Art School. It was housed at several Sydney venues before becoming the Julian Ashton Art School, at 117–119 George Street in the historical inner-city neighbourhood The Rocks. The school was highly influential and has always had a strong reputation for producing highly successful artists, such as Jean Bellette, William Dobell, Elioth Gruner, Jesse Jewhurst Hilder, George Lambert, Thea Proctor and Sydney Ure Smith.

Julian’s wife Eliza pursued literary and musical interests and in the 1890s was a social writer for The Daily Telegraph. She was a committee member of the Women’s Literary Society and a foundation member and councillor of the Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales. She was later an outspoken critic of marriage.

From 1889 to 1899, Julian was a trustee of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales, for which he increased acquisition of Australian artists’ works and bought (Sir) Arthur Streeton’s first painting. In 1897 and 1898, he was president of the Society of Artists, which in 1903 was amalgamated with the Art Society of New South Wales to become the Royal Art Society of New South Wales. In 1907, he led a successful move to re-establish the Society of Artists, of which he was president till 1921 and vice-president till 1940, when he returned to the Royal Art Society of New South Wales. Due to his domination of the Royal Art Society, it became strongly identified with his Sydney Art School.

The Julian Ashton Art School is now a heritage-listed art school and retail store.

Images courtesy Art Gallery of New South Wales.