Early 20th Century Realist Australian Landscape With Gum Tree, Ochre and Rust Watercolor by Victor Robert Watt

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The usual note on Victor Robert Watt (1886–1970) says only that he favored pastoral subjects in light washes, as though … Read more The usual note on Victor Robert Watt (1886–1970) says only that he favored pastoral subjects in light washes, as though the manner were simply a matter of temperament. This watercolor suggests a wider frame. A great pale-trunked gum tree reaches across the composition toward a shallow pool and open pasture beyond, its foliage set down in ochre and rust washes against a soft lavender-gray sky, the ground in pinkish tans with a distant blue tree line.

The single monumental gum recalls the celebrated trees of Hans Heysen, while the restraint of the handling has close parallels in British landscape painting after the First World War, when artists such as John Nash, Eric Ravilious, Dod Procter and Winifred Knights turned from avant-garde fragmentation toward ordered, pre-industrial country scenes, part of the broader return to order of the 1920s and 1930s. Watt was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, managed Swain’s Art Gallery in Sydney for a time, and is represented in the National Gallery of Australia. The work is undated, but its handling and palette are consistent with the inter-war period, circa 1920 to 1940. It is signed “V.R. Watt” in capitals at lower left.

The watercolor on paper has a sight size of 11-3/4 x 9-1/2 inches. It is presented under matte anti-reflective glass with a linen mat and blue-gray inner mat in a ribbed gilt frame. Photographs were white-balanced to a gray card under daylight-balanced lighting; colors may display slightly differently across screens. See less