Encyclopedia of Australian Art. all eds (2006 ed, p. 829): 'Tom Roberts studied at the RA Schools in London... in 1883 joined John Peter Russell and his brother Percy, and Will Maloney... in a walking tour with a donkey through Spain perhaps inspired by a similar journey undertaken by R.L. Stephenson. During their epic journey from Bordeaux to Granada they met two Spanish artists, Barrau and Casas who told them about the revolutionary art movements in Paris. French Impressionism, once so vehemently resisted by official salons, was gaining a strong hold.'
Alan McCulloch
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Laureano Barrau
Mademoiselle Adrienne, c. 1890
Catalogue number: 4
oil on canvas on board (A. Roche / rue des Batignolles)
33.00 x 24.00
signed and titled 'a Mll Adrienne / L. Barrau' l.r. (The dedication suggests this work was a gift, and though it is plausible to assume the subject was the recipient, we have not been able to determine either.)
Literature & references:
Note:
Of the two Catalans, Ramon Casas became a leading figure in the ebullient art scene in Barcelona (it flourished in a manner parallel to Melbourne around the turn of the century) with works now in major museums and private collections. Barrau was less prominent but nevertheless achieved a sound position as a late impressionist painter, mostly of the human figure. Like many of his contemporaries he studied in Paris (under Gerome in the late 1880s) and exhibited in Belgium, France and Spain until 1910 when he settled in Ibiza, where he remained and worked for the rest of his life, focusing mainly on local subjects. He is represented in museums in Spain, Paris, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro. The above painting would probably have been painted In Paris in the 1890's, given the French recipient and the Paris canvas board.
Exhibition Catalogue
Mademoiselle Adrienne
Laureano Barrau
c. 1890
oil on canvas on board (A. Roche / rue des Batignolles), 33.00 x 24.00
The Icon of the Saviour (Image Not-Made-By-Hands)
Leonard Brown
2015
egg tempera, 24 kt. gold leaf & gesso on beech wood panel, 61.00 x 46.00
Female Torso
Godfrey Miller
c. 1950 - 1954
Bronze (base separate); ed 2 of 12, 17.00 x 7.00 x 7.00
SOLD
(Woman with flowers – Study for sculpture)
Sidney Nolan
c. 1980 - 1990
crayon on card, 122.00 x 152.00
Portrait of Mira, the Artist's daughter
Stacha Halpern
c. 1961 - 1962
oil on canvas, 73.00 x 54.00
SOLD
Since its establishment in 1984, the Charles Nodrum Gallery’s exhibition program embraces a diversity of media and styles - from painting, sculpture & works on paper to graphics and photography; from figurative, geometric, gestural, surrealist & social comment to installation & conceptually based work.