The Box Hill artists’ camp was a site in Box Hill, Victoria

Box Hill, Victoria

Box Hill is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 14 km east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Whitehorse. At the 2006 Census, Box Hill had a population of 8,616....

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

  favoured for plein air painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 in the late 1880s by a group of artists who were part of a movement that later became known as the Heidelberg School

Heidelberg School

The Heidelberg School was an Australian art movement of the late 19th century. The movement has latterly been described as Australian Impressionism....

.

In the summer of 1885/86, Tom Roberts

Tom Roberts

Thomas William Roberts , usually known simply as Tom, was a prominent Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School.-Life:...

 and Frederick McCubbin

Frederick McCubbin

Frederick McCubbin was an Australian painter who was prominent in the Heidelberg School, one of the more important periods in Australia's visual arts history....

 set up a tent on the site near Damper Creek (now Gardiners Creek

Gardiners Creek

Gardiners Creek, originally known as Kooyongkoot Creek, is a waterway in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and part of the Yarra River catchment....

) on the property of David Houston, about a mile south of the railway station

Box Hill railway station, Melbourne

Box Hill railway station is on the Belgrave and Lilydale railway lines in Melbourne, Australia. It is located under Centro Box Hill shopping centre near the corner of Whitehorse Road and Station Street in Box Hill. A major bus interchange is part of the same complex, and the 109 tram route...

. At this time the area was relatively untouched bush

The Bush

"The bush" is a term used for rural, undeveloped land or country areas in certain countries.-Australia:The term is iconic in Australia. In reference to the landscape, "bush" describes a wooded area, intermediate between a shrubland and a forest, generally of dry and nitrogen-poor soil, mostly...

.

Painting activities were carried out on weekends by the two artists over the next few years and at various times other artists would join them including Arthur Streeton

Arthur Streeton

Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton was an Australian landscape painter.-Early life:Streeton was born in Mount Duneed, near Geelong, and his family moved to Richmond in 1874. In 1882, Streeton commenced art studies with G. F. Folingsby at the National Gallery School.Streeton was influenced by French...

, Louis Abrahams, Charles Conder

Charles Conder

Charles Edward Conder was an English-born painter, lithographer and designer. He emigrated to Australia and was a key figure in the Heidelberg School, arguably the beginning of a distinctively Australian tradition in Western art.-Early life:Conder was born in Tottenham, Middlesex, the second son,...

, Jane Sutherland

Jane Sutherland

Jane Sutherland was an Australian landscape painter pioneer of the plein-air movement in Australia, she was also notable for her advocacy to advance the professional standing of women artists....

, Tom Humphrey and John Mather

John Mather (artist)

John Mather was a Scottish-born, Australian plein-air painter and etcher.Mather was born in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, son of John Mather, a surveyor, and his wife Margaret, née Allan. Mather worked as a house decorator.Mather studied art at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts...

.

Works painted in and around the site include:

• The artists’ camp (Roberts, 1886)
• A summer morning tiff (Roberts, 1886)
• Lost (McCubbin, 1886)
• Gathering mistletoe (McCubbin, 1886]
• Obstruction (Sutherland, 1887)
• Reconciliation (Roberts, 1887)
• Settler’s Camp (Streeton, 1888)
• Pastoral (Streeton, 1888)
• The way to school (Humphrey, 1888)
• Orchard at Box Hill (Conder, 1888)
• Down on His Luck
  Down on His Luck
  Down on His Luck is an 1889 painting by Frederick McCubbin. It depicts a seemingly disheartened swagman, sitting by a campfire sadly brooding over his misfortune...
  
  (McCubbin 1889)

The site is located within the now suburbanised

Suburbanization

Suburbanization a term used to describe the growth of areas on the fringes of major cities. It is one of the many causes of the increase in urban sprawl. Many residents of metropolitan regions work within the central urban area, choosing instead to live in satellite communities called suburbs...

 area of Box Hill South

Box Hill South, Victoria

Box Hill South is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 14 km east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Whitehorse...

 and is commemorated by a cairn

Cairn

Cairn is a term used mainly in the English-speaking world for a man-made pile of stones. It comes from the or . Cairns are found all over the world in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, near waterways and on sea cliffs, and also in barren desert and tundra areas...

in Artists Park off Prince Street and nearby Roberts McCubbin Primary School.