Curlew Camp
Encyclopedia
Curlew Camp was a camp established in the late 19th century on the eastern shore of Little Sirius Cove at Mosman
in Sydney. It was home for some years to several highly respected Australian artists such as Arthur Streeton
and Tom Roberts
and it was from here that some of their most famous paintings were created. Today the site is still in its natural state and the Mosman Council has built a foreshore walk called the “Curlew Camp Artist’s Walk” which traces the journey that the residents of the camp followed when they disembarked from the ferry at Musgrave Street Wharf and returned to the camping site. The walk starts at South Mosman Wharf (then Musgrave Street Wharf) and continues along the harbour’s edge for 1.6 km until it finishes at Taronga Zoo Wharf.
. He and his brothers used the camp on weekends for recreation. In about 1891 Arthur Streeton first moved into Curlew Camp when he came from Melbourne
where he had lived in the Heidelberg camp. At this time he was 24 years old. Tom Roberts joined him soon after. As a source of income they held art classes in a Sydney studio. An advertisement. was placed in a newspaper in 1893 for one of these classes (see ad on right). Both artists were plein air painters so camp life in the outdoors suited them well.
In these early years the Curlew camp was quite small but well organised and comfortable. Streeton described it to a reporter in his later years when he was about 73 years old. He said that besides the Brasch brothers there were a few other men. They had half a dozen tents between them and there was a dining tent, a dancing floor and even a small piano. He said that they lived well for 12/6 a week.
Julian Ashton
was mainly a resident of a nearby artist’s camp at Balmoral but he did visit Curlew occasionally. In his later years he remembered Streeton and Roberts.
While he was at the camp Streeton wrote many letters to his friends and in some of them he gives colourful descriptions of life in the camp. In the early 1890s he wrote the following.
In April 1991 he wrote.
In 1896 he wrote
Tom Roberts was 35 when he came to Curlew Camp. He was different to the other artists as he was always well dressed. He wanted to paint portraits and to do this he needed an air of distinction. One artist at the camp said. "He represented the successful artist with the entre to Government House and was on the dining list of people who had a couple of thousand a year.".
In 1896 Tom Roberts married and left the camp to live in Balmain
. Streeton stayed for another two years and then in 1898 went to England
for some time. He returned to Australia
for a short while in 1907 and again visited Curlew Camp. From a vantage point above the site he painted some of his most famous works.
Streeton long remembered his days at Curlew. When he was interviewed in 1940 at his home in the Dandenongs
in Victoria, the reporter said that the photo of him at Curlew crouching over his painting (see photo at left) was hung above his mantelpiece and he looked back on this time with fondness. Also a letter written by him to another artist in 1943, almost at the end of his life, indicates that he remembered the camp well. In the letter he sketched a rough diagram of its location on the east side of Sirius Cove (see sketch on right) and said. "It’s quite exciting to think of you who used to paint in watercolour noticing where our camp used to be in Sirius Cove about 1891 to 1898."
There were other artists living in the camp in this early period. The most notable was Henry Fullwood
who painted a work called “Sirius Cove” in 1895. There were also musicians such as William Marshall-Hall
(1862–1915) and Alfred Hill
(1870–1960) who resided at the camp.
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|Painting by Arthur Streeton entitled From My Camp1896 which shows the eastern side of Little Sirius Cove where the camp was located
|Painting by Arthur Streeton entitled Sydney Harbour Souvenir of Sirius Cove 1897 which shows a view from the camp
|Painting by Arthur Streeton entitled Sydney Harbour 1907 which is a view from above the camp site
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(1880–1969) became the proprietor of the camp. Lane (see photo below) was a famous Australian Olympic swimmer who won two gold medals at the 1900 Games in Paris. When he returned from the Games he lived at the camp and commuted to the city where he worked in his printing firm called Smith and Lane. He stayed at the camp until his marriage in 1908. The camp became larger and more structured during this latter period. It now had a weatherboard dining room and a billiards tent known as the tabernacle (see photos below).
The camp closed in 1912 when it was decided to locate the Taronga Park Zoo
on the ridge above the site.
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|Inside a tent at Curlew Camp after 1900
|Frederick Lane (1880–1969) an Olympic swimmer who became proprietor of the camp after 1900
|Dining hut at Curlew Camp after 1900
|The billiards tent at Curlew Camp called "the tabernacle" after 1900
|}
Mosman, New South Wales
Mosman is a suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mosman is located 8 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Mosman.-Localities:In February...
in Sydney. It was home for some years to several highly respected Australian artists such as 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...
and 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 it was from here that some of their most famous paintings were created. Today the site is still in its natural state and the Mosman Council has built a foreshore walk called the “Curlew Camp Artist’s Walk” which traces the journey that the residents of the camp followed when they disembarked from the ferry at Musgrave Street Wharf and returned to the camping site. The walk starts at South Mosman Wharf (then Musgrave Street Wharf) and continues along the harbour’s edge for 1.6 km until it finishes at Taronga Zoo Wharf.
The early days at Curlew Camp
Curlew Camp was originally established in about 1890 by Reuben Brasch who was a wealthy clothing manufacturer and owned a Department store in SydneySydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
. He and his brothers used the camp on weekends for recreation. In about 1891 Arthur Streeton first moved into Curlew Camp when he came from Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
where he had lived in the Heidelberg camp. At this time he was 24 years old. Tom Roberts joined him soon after. As a source of income they held art classes in a Sydney studio. An advertisement. was placed in a newspaper in 1893 for one of these classes (see ad on right). Both artists were plein air painters so camp life in the outdoors suited them well.
In these early years the Curlew camp was quite small but well organised and comfortable. Streeton described it to a reporter in his later years when he was about 73 years old. He said that besides the Brasch brothers there were a few other men. They had half a dozen tents between them and there was a dining tent, a dancing floor and even a small piano. He said that they lived well for 12/6 a week.
Julian Ashton
Julian Ashton
Julian Rossi Ashton was an Australian artist and teacher, known for his support of the Heidelberg School and for his influential art school in Sydney....
was mainly a resident of a nearby artist’s camp at Balmoral but he did visit Curlew occasionally. In his later years he remembered Streeton and Roberts.
- “I saw Streeton fairly often at this time. He lived in a camp at Little Sirius Cove, Mosman, where he was joined later on by Tom Roberts. He used to do the marketing, and on arriving at the Musgrave Street wharf had to walk around the point and blow a whistle for the boat to come across from the camp. To see him returning on Saturday nights, laden with parcels of bread, beer and beef, and as merry the while as a boy at a picnic, was a delight. In those days the painters' material wants were few, but their hopes were unbounded."
While he was at the camp Streeton wrote many letters to his friends and in some of them he gives colourful descriptions of life in the camp. In the early 1890s he wrote the following.
- "I sit here in my tent and look across the little bay beneath to the hill beyond, all in massive purple shadow – right across which comes a beautiful mass of clematis and begonia creeper, the stem of a red gum sapling and a young wild cherry tree. Below a few feet is my box with mignonette opening its second set of leaves to the brilliant warmth of the sun which floods all the green and cheerful surroundings of our tent making it like a fairy’s bower. All the morning I’ve been wandering about the hill of bush behind our camp gathering flowers and delicate ferns to plant in our little summer house close by.".
In April 1991 he wrote.
- “Around the tent climb the Begonia and Clematis and Sarsaparilla the rough winds broken for us by an exquisite fusion of tender gum-leaf. Honeysuckle (like the trees of the old asters). Cotton plants heath and a wild cherry (bright green at our tent door) and the beautiful flood beneath. All is splendid."
- "Tis now 11 O’clock. My tent stands like a quiet glowing lamp on the deep black hill – the sombre night all round – a southerly gale sweeps over the bay the boat bumps against the pier below. All alone in the camp tonight."
In 1896 he wrote
- “Saturday 9 pm. In our tent at Mossman’s Bay – the front of our tent thrown open wide and the night sky is deep green blue and below the great hill the bay reaches down into a deep wonderful gulf under the sea. Picnic parties pulling about quietly through the rare phosphorescence, steamers puffing breathing heavily and fluting away and all with me is melody."
Tom Roberts was 35 when he came to Curlew Camp. He was different to the other artists as he was always well dressed. He wanted to paint portraits and to do this he needed an air of distinction. One artist at the camp said. "He represented the successful artist with the entre to Government House and was on the dining list of people who had a couple of thousand a year.".
In 1896 Tom Roberts married and left the camp to live in Balmain
Balmain
Balmain can refer to:Places:* Balmain, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia* Electoral district of Balmain, an electoral division in New South Wales, Australia* Balmain East, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia...
. Streeton stayed for another two years and then in 1898 went to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
for some time. He returned to 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...
for a short while in 1907 and again visited Curlew Camp. From a vantage point above the site he painted some of his most famous works.
Streeton long remembered his days at Curlew. When he was interviewed in 1940 at his home in the Dandenongs
Dandenong Ranges
The Dandenong Ranges are a set of low mountain ranges, rising to 633 metres at Mount Dandenong, approximately 35 km east of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia...
in Victoria, the reporter said that the photo of him at Curlew crouching over his painting (see photo at left) was hung above his mantelpiece and he looked back on this time with fondness. Also a letter written by him to another artist in 1943, almost at the end of his life, indicates that he remembered the camp well. In the letter he sketched a rough diagram of its location on the east side of Sirius Cove (see sketch on right) and said. "It’s quite exciting to think of you who used to paint in watercolour noticing where our camp used to be in Sirius Cove about 1891 to 1898."
There were other artists living in the camp in this early period. The most notable was Henry Fullwood
Albert Henry Fullwood
Albert Henry Fullwood was the Australian official war artist to the 5th Division in the First World War.Fullwood was born in Erdington, Birmingham, son of Frederick John Fullwood, jeweller, and his wife Emma, née Barr. From 1878, Fullwood studied art at evening classes at the Birmingham Institute...
who painted a work called “Sirius Cove” in 1895. There were also musicians such as William Marshall-Hall
Marshall Hall (musician)
George William Louis Marshall-Hall was an English-born musician, composer, conductor, poet and controversialist who lived and worked in Australia from 1891 till his death in 1915...
(1862–1915) and Alfred Hill
Alfred Hill
Alfred Francis Hill CMG OBE was an Australian/New Zealand composer, conductor and teacher.-Biography:Alfred Hill was born in Melbourne in 1869. His year of birth is shown in many sources as 1870, but this has now been disproven. He spent most of his early life in New Zealand...
(1870–1960) who resided at the camp.
{| class="wikitable" border="1"
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|Painting by Arthur Streeton entitled From My Camp1896 which shows the eastern side of Little Sirius Cove where the camp was located
|Painting by Arthur Streeton entitled Sydney Harbour Souvenir of Sirius Cove 1897 which shows a view from the camp
|Painting by Arthur Streeton entitled Sydney Harbour 1907 which is a view from above the camp site
|}
Curlew Camp after 1900
After the painters had left Curlew the camp became more a place for those who were interested in sailing or enjoyed the outdoor life. Frederick LaneFrederick Lane
Frederick Claude Vivian Lane was an Australian swimmer.Lane, from Manly, New South Wales, was the first Australian to represent his country in swimming at the Olympic Games, although he was actually a part of the British team when he competed at the 1900 Paris Games and won two gold medals.He...
(1880–1969) became the proprietor of the camp. Lane (see photo below) was a famous Australian Olympic swimmer who won two gold medals at the 1900 Games in Paris. When he returned from the Games he lived at the camp and commuted to the city where he worked in his printing firm called Smith and Lane. He stayed at the camp until his marriage in 1908. The camp became larger and more structured during this latter period. It now had a weatherboard dining room and a billiards tent known as the tabernacle (see photos below).
The camp closed in 1912 when it was decided to locate the Taronga Park Zoo
Taronga Zoo
Taronga Zoo is the city zoo of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Officially opened on 7 October 1916, it is located on the shores of Sydney Harbour in the suburb of Mosman...
on the ridge above the site.
{| class="wikitable" border="1"
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|Inside a tent at Curlew Camp after 1900
|Frederick Lane (1880–1969) an Olympic swimmer who became proprietor of the camp after 1900
|Dining hut at Curlew Camp after 1900
|The billiards tent at Curlew Camp called "the tabernacle" after 1900
|}