Al fresco

This elegant family group represents the outdoor life of the European leisure class before the outbreak of the First World War, in 1914. The stylishness of the women, the child amused by the dog about to be indulged with a piece of fruitcake, and the table setting all offer a scene of conviviality as yet untroubled by political turmoil or financial strain.

Emanuel Phillips Fox was born in Melbourne and studied there but lived a large part of his professional life in Europe. In the late 1880s he was immersed in the centre of the art world in cosmopolitan Paris. He studied at the Académie Julian, in Gérôme’s atelier at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and in the summer retreated to rural areas.  He painted en plein air at artist camps in Étaples and Brittany and visited the region of Giverny, famously associated with Claude Monet.

Evidence of his familiarisation with French Impressionism can be seen here, in the application of broken colour and the dappled afternoon light-and-shade effects. These classic techniques enhance the informal and genteel mood of this painting. Above all, this work conveys Phillips Fox’s mastery of colour relationships, while the play of the complementary red and green accents suggests that he came closer to the manner of French Impressionism than any other Australian painter.

Tracey Lock, Curator of Australian Paintings and Sculpture