Book Description

A gifted artist whose personal style and unconventional life made him one of the most intriguing artists of the late 19th century is portrayed in this biography of Charles Conders. A friend of Tom Roberts and student of Frederick McCubbin, Conder was one of the few painters of the Heidelberg School of Australian Impressionists to achieve a reputation in Europe. After contributing to the famous 9 x 5 Exhibition in Melbourne in 1889, Conders traveled to Paris, where he mingled with such fin de siècle leaders as Oscar Wilde, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Aubrey Beardsley. There he readily embraced bohemia and found himself forever in debt, while he lived as though there were no tomorrow. Saved from poverty by marriage to a wealthy widow, the painter nevertheless descended into syphilitic madness and died before the age of 40.