Box Hill artists' camp
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The Box Hill artists’ camp was a site in Box Hill, Victoria, Australia favoured for plein air painting in the late 1880s by a group of artists who were part of a movement that later became known as the Heidelberg School.
In the summer of 1885/86, Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin set up a tent on the site near Damper Creek (now Gardiners Creek) on the property of David Houston, about a mile south of the railway station. At this time the area was relatively untouched bush.
Painting activities were carried out on weekends by the two artists over the next few years and at various times other artists would join them including Arthur Streeton, Louis Abrahams, Charles Conder, Jane Sutherland, Tom Humphrey and John Mather.
Works painted in and around the site include:
- The artists’ camp (Roberts, 1886)
- A summer morning tiff (Roberts, 1886)
- Lost (McCubbin, 1886)
- Gathering mistletoe (McCubbin, 1886]
- Obstruction (Sutherland, 1887)
- Reconciliation (Roberts, 1887)
- Settler’s Camp (Streeton, 1888)
- Pastoral (Streeton, 1888)
- The way to school (Humphrey, 1888)
- Orchard at Box Hill (Conder, 1888)
- Down on his luck (McCubbin 1889)
The site is located within the now suburbanised area of Box Hill South and is commemorated by a cairn in Artists Park off Prince Street and nearby Roberts McCubbin Primary School.
