Ruby Campbell Watercolour "Wattle"

Ruby Campbell Watercolour "Wattle"
Watercolour landscape painting by Ruby Martin Campbell featuring a wattle tree in flower.
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Theme

Documents

Time

1950s

Place

Callide

Tags

Painting
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Watercolour painting of a landscape featuring a yellow-flowered wattle tree at far right. There is a collection of other trees at the rear of the image, with a green grassy slope and rocks to be seen in the foreground. The signature RM Campbell is at lower right of image.

Background

After attending art school in Melbourne around 1921, Ruby learned to execute a more 'classical' style of watercolour painting than her earlier detailed and whimsical works. She had exhibited some watercolours, etchings and pencil sketches in Rockhampton in 1973, but the majority of her paintings were in storage, and were discovered by her niece Heather Stewart just prior to Ruby's death in 1977. This watercolour is one of the paintings that Heather discovered in storage, and was able to get Ruby to sign before her passing. Ruby was passionate about supporting the Arts in Central Queensland, and had donated works and funding to help establish Rockhampton and Biloela Galleries. Her descendants continue this legacy. Ruby's works are now held in Rockhampton, Gladstone, Banana Shire, and Toowoomba Regional Galleries, as well as in a number of private collections in Qld and interstate.

Ruby Campbell Collection donated to GRAGM

In 2014, Heather Stewart organised the donation of a collection of Ruby Campbell's artworks and correspondence to the Gladstone Regional Art Gallery & Museum.

https://www.gladstoneobserver.com.au/news/ruby-campbell-art-collection-donated-gladstone/2228655/#/0

Additional Ruby Campbell Watercolour of Tree Trunk

Trees were a very popular subject for Ruby, and were depicted in her etchings, pencil drawings, and watercolours. This particular watercolour is one of a pair showing the detail in the trunks of large gum trees. Watercolour painting by Ruby Campbell depicting the large trunk of a gum tree. Only the trunk area from the base up to the first branches is featured, and details of the coloured and peeling bark of the trunk form the basis of the image. The tones are pinks, creams, maroons and pale shades of green in the visible leaves.