George Bell

Mary Macqueen, Jan Nigro and Adele Younghusband are recorded as having studied under George Bell. Work by George Bell is recorded in the collections of National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales and National Gallery of Australia. Distinctions recorded are Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

• Name — George Bell • Born — 1 December 1878 • Birthplace — Kew, Victoria, Australia • Birth Name — George Frederick Henry Bell • Died — 22 October 1966 • Place of death — Toorak, Victoria, Australia • Education — Kew High School • Alma Mater — National Gallery of Victoria Art School • Occupation — * Painter • portraitist • teacher • art critic • violinist George Frederick Henry Bell size-85% (1 December 1878 – 22 October 1966) was an Australian painter and teacher, critic, portraitist, violinist and war artist who contributed significantly to the advancement of the local Modern movement from the 1920s to the 1930s.

George Bell was born in Kew, Victoria, the son and fourth child of Clara (née Bowler) and George Bell, public servant, and was educated at Kew High School. He studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School from 1896 to 1903 under Frederick McCubbin and painting master Bernard Hall and also took private instruction from George Coates over 1895-6.

Bell's father financed his studies so he could afford to travel, and on 19 April 1904 he sailed for England, then Paris where studied with Jean Paul Laurens at Julian's atelier, then at the academies of the Spaniard Castelucha and Colarossi. In 1906 he travelled to Italy to study the Old Masters, particularly Titian and Tintoretto, before visiting the Impressionist artists’ colonies at Étaples, and St Ives in 1907. That year he became a founder of the Modern Society of Portrait Painters in London where he later exhibited in 1915. Importantly, in 1908 he was accepted into the Royal Academy and joined the Chelsea Arts Club, mixing with Australian expatriates Will Ashton, Fred Leist, George Coates, Dora Meeson, Will Dyson and his wife Ruby Lindsay, and British artists George Lambert and Philip Connard.

• Illustration — Portrait of Australian official war artists, 1916–1918 by George Coates, 1920. George Bell is seated in front Bell remained in England at the outset of World War I, and being declared medically unfit, he taught at Highfield School in Liphook, and during 1917 worked in a munitions factory. From October 1918 to the end of 1919 he was an official war artist to the 4th Division of the Australian Imperial Force on the Western Front though combat had ceased when he arrived, so he documented scenes of the devastation, and the daily lives of soldiers, of whom he made twelve portraits. Bell's major war painting concerning the Battle of Hamel, Dawn at Hamel 4 July 1918, was completed in 1920, after his return to Australia in poor health in December 1919, and the work now hangs in the Australian War Memorial. The Ballarat Fine Art Gallery collection includes his work entitled The Conversation. One of his early formal paintings, The Conversation was painted while he was overseas and was first exhibited at the Modern Society of Portrait Painters in 1911.

Bell married English actress Edith Lucy Antoinette Hobbs, whom he had met in England in 1915. They had a house and studio built for them by Bell's cousin Marcus Barlow; 9 Selbourne Road Toorak remained his lifelong home and there the couple entertained often and artists including Will Dyson and Eric Thake visited to sketch. The couple's only child Antoinette was born in December 1922. Bell had also studied violin with Victor and Alberto Zelman, joined the Hawthorn Orchestra, and during the 1920s played the viola in the University Conservatorium Orchestra and later the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He involved himself eagerly in the community of artists, being elected to the council of the Victorian Artists’ Society, was a founder of the Twenty Melbourne Painters and in 1922 joined the Australian Art Association, serving as president between 1924 and 1926. One of a number of Australian art critics for news periodicals that proliferated in the mid 20th century, he contributed for The Sun News-Pictorial from 1923 to 1950. In 1925 he replaced the National Gallery School drawing master William McInnes while he was overseas. He continued in a Tonalist style though was increasingly attracted to Modernism by the 1930s.

In protest at the government sponsored conservatism of Australian art, on 13 July 1932, Bell established the Contemporary Art Society as founding president 1938–1940. In 1937, the federal Attorney General, Robert Menzies, established the Australian Academy of Art, an Australian equivalent to the Royal Academy. Bell was the leading opponent of the plan and a spokesman for "modern art", pursued a prolonged public argument with Menzies and was instrumental in it not obtaining a royal charter. That year Bell brought an exhibition of fifty-two works of modern art by artists outside Australia, including paintings by van Gogh and also a Picasso, to the National Gallery of Victoria between October and November. The Contemporary Art Society's first exhibition was also at the National Gallery of Victoria, in June 1939, and included work from all states, but after internal disagreements Bell, with 38 members, seceded in 1940. John Reed revived the Society in 1954, and in 1956 established the Gallery of Contemporary Art, which became the Museum of Modern Art Australia in 1958. In 1941 Bell organised another group, the Melbourne Contemporary Artists, and then in 1949 he created the George Bell group, both successful because of his influence in Australian art and respect amongst its community. Its members were; Eric Thake, Alan Sumner, Yvonne Atkinson, Geoff Jones, Jack Courier, Justin Gill, Sali Herman, Ian Armstrong, Fred Williams, Harry Rosengrave, Len French, Constance Stokes, Russell Drysdale.

Bell established his reputation in England in a series of exhibitions before the First World War. The Ballarat Fine Art Gallery collection includes his work entitled The Conversation. One of his early formal paintings, The Conversation was painted while he was overseas and was first exhibited at the Modern Society of Portrait Painters in 1911. • 1908: Allied Artists Association • 1908: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool • 1909: Allied Artists Association • 1911: Modern Society of Portrait Painters • 1911: The Salon • 1913: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool • 1913: The Salon • 1913: The Royal Institute Of Portrait Painters • 1914: New English Art Club Returning to Australia Bell initiated and participated in the exhibitions of the George Bell Group and of the Melbourne Contemporary Art Society, and of his work in a March 1956 showing of the latter, The Age art critic remarked "George Bell is undoubtedly the most brilliant draftsman of the group. His two drawings, executed with complete control, are monumental in form." • 1931, 27 April – 10 May: Annual Autumn exhibition. Victorian Artists' Society Gallery, Melbourne1935, from 1 November: Exhibition of contemporary art. Geelong Grammar Art Gallery, Geelong Grammar, Geelong • 1946, from 4 June: Contemporary drawings. Myer Gallery, Melbourne • 1950, 23 May – 2 June: Tenth anniversary 1940 – 1950. Tye's Art Gallery, Rear Tyre's Furniture store, Bourke St., Melbourne • 1953, 12–23 December: Herald outdoor art show. Treasury Gardens, Melbourne

• 1978, 13 April – 5 May: A Survey of Australian Relief Prints 1900 – 1950. Deutscher Galleries 1092 High Street, Armidale, MelbournePosthumous exhibitions include Bell in surveys of Australian art. In particular • 1979: George Bell retrospective exhibition. University Of Melbourne Art Gallery • 1979, 10 – 25 May: Early works and others selected from the Harry Rosengrave Collection. Hawthorn City Art Gallery, 584 Glenferrie Rd., Hawthorn • 1981: Melbourne woodcuts and linocuts of the 1920's and 1930s. McClelland Gallery, Boundary Rd., Langwarrin; UQ Art Gallery, Level 5, Forgan Smith Tower, University of Queensland, St Lucia; Newcastle Region Art Gallery, Laman Street, Newcastle; Victorian College Of The Arts Gallery, 234 St Kilda Rd., Melbourne; Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, 40 Lydiard St., Ballarat, Victoria, Australia • 1983, 8 – 24 June: Images of Women Prints and Drawings of the Twentieth Century. University Of Melbourne Art Gallery. • 1986: Frances Derham MBE: a retrospective exhibition covering the period 1910 to 1985 including works George Bell, Danila Vassilieff, Geoff Jones, Ethel Spowers, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack. Jim Alexander Gallery, 13 Elmo Road, East Malvern • 1988, 13 August – 10 September: Fifty Years of Australian Printmaking Sydney Long to Eric Thake. Josef Lebovic Gallery, 34 Paddington Street, Paddington, Sydney • 1991, 17–28 April: The George Bell Group exhibition. A tribute to George Bell. Eastgate Gallery, 729 High St., Armadale, Victoria • 2025, 16 March–28 September: A modern turn. Castlemaine Art Museum