LOUIS BUVELOT (1814 - 1888)

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Abram-Louis Buvelot was a Swiss-born landscape painter who emigrated to Australia in 1865 and influenced the Heidelberg School of painters. He is represented in the galleries at Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Castlemaine, and his bust by Bertram Mackennal and a portrait in oils by J. C. Waite are also in the Melbourne gallery. His works also hang in the Tate Gallery in London. Buvelot is best known for his great contribution to Australian art. His works, mostly oil landscapes, are quite well regarded, but perhaps his impact was even greater as a tutor of several members of the Heidelberg School, including Arthur Streeton, who named Buvelot's 1866 painting Summer Evening Near Templestowe the "first fine landscape painted in Victoria". His enthusiasm for plein air painting (that is, painting directly in the open air) was a key characteristic of those artists' work.

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