Henry Fullwood (Uncle Remus), 1919

Albert Henry Fullwood (1863-1930), artist, trained in art in his native Birmingham before moving to Sydney in 1883, aged 20. He soon gained employment with the Picturesque Atlas of Australia, travelling a great deal to produce exactly the kind of illustration the publication required. He became part of the group of Sydney painters that included Roberts and Streeton, living at Sirius Cove for a time. Becoming friendly with Livingston Hopkins, he developed his etching practice. According to some sources, he signed his Bulletin cartoons Remus; others state that his friends gave him the nickname, on account of his entertaining storytelling. He was one of the founding members of the Society of Artists. In 1899 he took his family by way of New York to London, where he exhibited at the Royal Academy and became friends with Bertram Mackennal and fellow members of the Chelsea Arts Club. He remained in London until World War 1, during which he worked along with Roberts, Streeton and George Coates at the Wandsworth hospital before being sent to the Western Front as an official artist. About sixty of his evocative French watercolours are in the Australian War Memorial, including one depicting the aftermath of the death of Baron von Richthofen. Fullwood stands adjacent to Lambert in George Coates’s famous painting of the official war artists. In 1920 Fullwood returned to Sydney, where he continued to exhibit and involve himself in art societies including the Australian Painter Etchers’ Society and the Australian Water-Colour Institute. Lambert returned to Sydney in 1921, but died in 1930, aged just 56. At Lambert’s request, Fullwood was one of his pallbearers. Fullwood died, himself, just a few months after Lambert.

Lambert and Fullwood knew each other for a long time, and Lambert could have drawn Fullwood in England any time from the turn of the century to the war years. However, the letters ARA in the signature suggest that this drawing was made in Australia after Lambert was made an associate of the Royal Academy (in 1922).

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Denis Savill 2017
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program