Horace Trennery

Recently I went to a painter's weekend near Bathurst with an incredible landscape artist named Tim Miller ( about Tim ). One of the best things about the weekend - apart from Tim’s paintings and the Pobble-Bonk frogs in the creek-(don’t you love that name) was a book circulating about Horace Trennery (1899-1958).

I had never heard of him and loved his work immediately, so much so that I wound up ordering the book (find here). Thank goodness, author Lou Kelpac recognised Horace’s genius and gave us this book.

An old photo shows him sitting with a large painting propped against a fence, on uneven ground. I never paint sitting or below eye level. Or with a board on the dusty ground. Yet he coped! Here I am, thinking I can't do a landscape painting without a fancy, expensive easel. How much we could learn from these guys who had little, but made much. Australian painters such as Trennery had very heavy wooden easels, basic paints and schlepped out to remote, wild places. They somehow brought back large wet oil paintings of the most incredible quality. To think: I struggle to get out with a car boot full of equipment and an aluminium easel.

Horace was an Adelaide man and lived in that area all his life. He died of Huntington’s disease in a “Home for Incurables”. He had some recognition in his lifetime, but most people today will not have heard of him. My heart goes out to him. I know what it feels like to have to paint but be painting into a void, in a way. Not knowing if anyone will pay one iota of attention to your work. Let me honour this talented man now.

The main thing I loved about his work is the simplicity and mastery of brushwork. I love the colour harmony – some of his works are almost fauvist. Yet he chose soft pastel hues at other times. His paintings are unrefined, immediate, and somewhat coarse, but beautifully and skilfully considered at the same time. Apparently, he has been compared to Van Gogh, and I can see why. Can you? Is that hubristic? There is something lively and direct in his paintings, yet accurate. His work feels real, natural and unstrained. This is what learning true artistic skills gives us. It helps us say what we want to say- really. It is not easy, it takes work. Like learning scales in music work. but the gorgeousness lies in the apparent ease, in much the same way listening to an accomplished pianist gives joy. You can trust yourself into it because you are taken by their skills into the beauty they are offering.

Woodside circa 1932

1st: ‘Landscape’, 1937 
2nd: ‘Early Morning, Willunga’', 1935
3rd: ‘Sunny Day, Sydney Harbour’, 1923 (100years ago!)
4th: ‘Hawker, Flinders Ranges’. Circa 1930