Background
Julian Ashton was born on January 27, 1851 in Addlestone, Surrey, United Kingdom. He was the son of Thomas Briggs Ashton and Henrietta Rossi.
Julian Ashton was born on January 27, 1851 in Addlestone, Surrey, United Kingdom. He was the son of Thomas Briggs Ashton and Henrietta Rossi.
Initially, Julian studied at the West London School of Art. Some time later, he enrolled at the Académie Julian in Paris.
After death of Julian's father in 1864, he was brought to London, where he started to work in the civil engineering branch of the Great Western Railway. Ashton remained there for 6 years, using his entire leisure time painting in South Kensington.
Ashton emigrated to Melbourne in 1878 and lived there for 5 years before moving to Sydney in 1883.
Having begun giving private art classes in 1886, in the early 1890s he taught for the Art Society of New South Wales, but in 1895 he established his own Julian Ashton Art School. There, his students included George Lambert, Thea Proctor, Elioth Gruner and Sydney Long.
Through the 1890s, Ashton was a Trustee of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 1892, he was appointed an art instructor at the Royal Art Society Of New South Wales, a post he held during four years. The same year, in 1892, Julian was commissioned by George Adams to decorate the "Marble Bar" at his well-known hotel.
In 1898, the painter organized the show of Australian art at the Grafton Gallery in London.
About 1915, Julian began to have trouble with his eyesight. This, in addition to his asthma, forced him to reduce his activities, although he remained vocal on art matters, particularly modernism, which he condemned for bad draftsmanship and poor craftsmanship.
The painter published his reminiscences, Now Came Still Evening On, in 1941.
A solitary ramble
The Hon. Henry Gullett MLC
The Corner of the Paddock
Reflections
Old house, Trinity Lane, Sydney
My mother
Summer Holidays
The coral necklet
Life in London
Sentry-box Reach, Hawkesbury River, New South Wales
The Reverend Canon Boyce
Old houses, Cumberland Street
Mouth of the Goulburn River
The wave
The Chess Game
A waterhole on the Hawkesbury River
Gloucester Street, The Rocks, Sydney
Terrigal Headland, New South Wales
Tamarama Beach, forty years ago, a summer morning
Boatman on the Hawkesbury River, at Cole and Candle Creek, near Akuna Bay
Study of Alice Muskett
The Botanic Gardens, Sydney
Clyde St, Miller's Point
Cumberland St, The Rocks, Sydney
Evening, Merri Creek
The Ball Dress
The prospector
Cambridge St., looking towards the Argyle Cut
Mosman's Bay
Circular Quay, Sydney
Shoalhaven River, junction with Broughton Creek, New South Wales
Aboriginal family group
The everlasting hills
The ferry
Back of old house, Clyde St Miller's Point
Portrait of Louis Buvelot
Misty morning, Dora Creek
Julian bathed in the sea all the year round, cultivated his vegetable patch and tended his poultry. Lionel Lindsay found him "a generous friend, a fine enemy".
Physical Characteristics: Strong, white-haired and ruddy-faced, Ashton had a military-type moustache.
Julian married Mary Ann Pugh on 1 August 1876. The couple gave birth to four sons and a daughter. Their son, Julian Howard Ashton, was a journalist, artist and writer.
On September 8, 1902 Ashton married Constance Irene Morley.