Max Meldrum (1875-1955), artist and teacher, studied at the NGV School before beginning work as a freelance illustrator and cartoonist. He won the NGV Travelling Scholarship in 1900, and painted in Paris and Brittany for thirteen years before returning to Melbourne. In 1916 he founded an art school in the city, and many students from the NGV school left it to join Meldrum's. They were the first of many generations of Australian artists known as 'Meldrumites', who were indoctrinated in what Meldrum believed to be the 'invariable truths of depictive art' and the 'science of appearance' relating to tonal and space relations between objects.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mrs Shirley Greathead 2009
Accession number: 2009.113
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