Miles Evergood - No End of Passion
Gael Hammer
Australian Impressionist artist Miles Evergood (1871-1939) was born Myer Blashki in Melbourne. He studied at the National Gallery of Victoria School of Art In the 1890s, escaping to USA in 1898. He was acclaimed by fellow-artists, critics and the buying public in New York in the early 1900s, acknowledged as a Tonalist.
In 1910 he went with his family to England for the education for his only child, Philip. In London he exhibited with the anti academicians at Burlington House, was hung in the 1914 Paris Salon, changed their name to Evergood. He served with other Australian artists at Wandsworth in the Medical Corps. In1922, they returned to New York where son Philip Evergood eventually became renown as a social realist painter. In 1931, he returned to Australia, which he found in an artistic time warp.
Acknowledged by several critics and welcomed as a new breeze of change by his art school colleagues, he never achieved the recognition at home that he found overseas, before his untimely death in 1939. His wife was unable to return to America until after the war in 1946, taking the whole collection with her. Aside from some works held by family members and in three Australian galleries, everything vanished.
In 1983, a collector-dealer found the works at a Californian flea market. Attracted only by their intrinsic appeal, he was able to purchase most of the works, together with contemporary newspaper cuttings and a trove of other associated material.
Author Gael Hammer is Miles Evergood's great-niece. Why she began researching the story, how she and the collector-dealer made contact, how the pictures were returned to Australia, and where they are now, is the stuff of this extraordinary tale.
Part history, part mystery, part art appreciation, it puts Miles Evergood where he belongs not only in the panoply of Australian art, but on the world stage. With 39 colour reproductions, 38 black and white drawings and family photos.
ISBN: 9780646909479
Author: Hammer, Gael
Format: Hardback
In 1910 he went with his family to England for the education for his only child, Philip. In London he exhibited with the anti academicians at Burlington House, was hung in the 1914 Paris Salon, changed their name to Evergood. He served with other Australian artists at Wandsworth in the Medical Corps. In1922, they returned to New York where son Philip Evergood eventually became renown as a social realist painter. In 1931, he returned to Australia, which he found in an artistic time warp.
Acknowledged by several critics and welcomed as a new breeze of change by his art school colleagues, he never achieved the recognition at home that he found overseas, before his untimely death in 1939. His wife was unable to return to America until after the war in 1946, taking the whole collection with her. Aside from some works held by family members and in three Australian galleries, everything vanished.
In 1983, a collector-dealer found the works at a Californian flea market. Attracted only by their intrinsic appeal, he was able to purchase most of the works, together with contemporary newspaper cuttings and a trove of other associated material.
Author Gael Hammer is Miles Evergood's great-niece. Why she began researching the story, how she and the collector-dealer made contact, how the pictures were returned to Australia, and where they are now, is the stuff of this extraordinary tale.
Part history, part mystery, part art appreciation, it puts Miles Evergood where he belongs not only in the panoply of Australian art, but on the world stage. With 39 colour reproductions, 38 black and white drawings and family photos.
ISBN: 9780646909479
Author: Hammer, Gael
Format: Hardback