Victory Gold Box 400pc Morning Light Country Scene HS Power 16pt5x14pt5in DSC09579

For the theme of Light & Shade/Shadow.
One of the most memorable things about far-away holidays is often the quality of the light. I've not visited Australia, but I was attracted to this painting. This victory Gold Box jigsaw shows a beautiful watercolour painting by H Septimus Power, of a farm landscape at Geelong, Victoria, Australia. On the box label it is called 'Morning Light (Country Scene)'. The main subject is the beautiful foreground eucalyptus tree and the blue-purple distant hills - a man is ploughing by hand with a team of two shire horses.

Victory Gold Box 400pc Morning Light Country Scene HS Power 16.5x14.5in
There is a bit of discolouration, mainly in the sky, but luckily it blends into the painting's colour palette. The jigsaw is quite loosely cut, but the whimsy set is shapely, and the ordinary pieces are reasonably interesting.

H Septimus Power
Harold Septimus Power (1877-1951), artist, was born on 31 December 1877 at Dunedin, New Zealand, son of Peter Power, English-born hatter, and his Scottish wife Jane, née Amers - the couple moved to Australia when the artist was a young boy. Power's father was a hatter by trade but also a painter and art teacher; however, despite his son's obvious artistic ability and interest, he strongly discouraged him from pursuing a career as a professional artist. At the age of 14, Power ran away from home to pursue a career as an artist. He developed a passion for drawing animals, especially horses, and found jobs that involved contact with animals. While working for a carriage painter, he painted studies of animal heads on butcher's delivery vans, and later on he worked as a veterinarian's assistant. After some art training in Melbourne he exhibited in 1899 with the Melbourne Art Club, winning both animal and landscape sections. Soon after, he moved to Adelaide where he worked as an illustrator for the Observer, the Register, the Critic and other papers. In 1900 Power moved to Adelaide where he worked as a political cartoonist with the Register, and painted in the Adelaide hills with Hans Heysen. In 1903 Power was the first Australian artist to receive a commission from the National Gallery of South Australia. In 1904 he was commissioned by the trustees of the Art Gallery of South Australia to paint an animal picture ('After the day's toil') for 100 guineas. On 17 September he married Isabel Laura Butterworth (d.1935).

In 1905 he travelled to Europe to study at the Academe Julian in Paris. In 1905-07 Power studied at the Académie Julian, Paris, then settled in London, becoming a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Oils and the Society of Animal Painters, and exhibiting at the Royal Academy of Arts. He was able to indulge his passion for animal painting with commissions from wealthy English patrons, and he regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy throughout his career. His first one-man exhibition at the Guild Hall, Melbourne, in June 1913 displayed oils and watercolours of rural landscapes, used as backdrops for scenes of equine splendour and hunting which were to remain popular with both the local and international public and critics for the next thirty years.

In 1917 Power was appointed official war artist with the 1st Division Australian Imperial Force, with the honorary rank of lieutenant. He worked in France from September to December. He was commissioned for a second time from August 1918 to March 1920, and then contracted on commissions for the Australian War Records Section until 1938. His skills as an animal painter were apparent in such paintings as 'The First Divisional Artillery goes into action before Ypres July 31st 1917' which was acclaimed at the Royal Academy in 1919. He captured some of the last significant horse battles to take place in modern warfare in the paintings he created for the Australian War Memorial and was considered to be the Antipodean Munnings or Stubbs.
A number of Power's commissions were for large paintings depicting significant campaigns of the Australian Light Horse during the First World War, including Leaders of the Australian Light Horse in Palestine, 1918 and Ziza. In 1922 the Melbourne Public Library commissioned a large mural depicting the Middle Eastern Theatre and the Western Front. In 1927 the Commonwealth selected Power to depict the opening of Parliament in the new Commonwealth building in Canberra. The painting, Opening of Federal Parliament at Canberra, 9 May 1927, is now held in the Parliament House Art Collection.

Between the wars Power lived intermittently in Melbourne and overseas. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, at the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Institute of Painters in Oils, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the Royal Water Colour Association and the Paris Old Salon. His departures from and returns to Australia were marked by significant exhibitions, usually featuring a much-praised Royal Academy work as centrepiece. He maintained his selling appeal even through the Depression when prices of five hundred guineas remained not uncommon. In 1927 he was commissioned with W. B. McInnes to paint the ceremonial opening of the Federal parliament. He executed various other State and Federal commissions including a mural, 'War', for the Public Library of Victoria (1924).

Apologists for traditional art in Australia between the wars lauded Power's work for its nostalgic rural vision, reflecting the self-confidence, moral certainties and self-absorption of the Edwardian country-set. Arthur Streeton wrote of his rival's work: 'One is impressed first by a tremendous display of colour and a dauntless feeling of optimism … He displays remarkable knowledge and vigour in his paintings of animals'. Unlike Streeton, Power did not need to reorient his pictorial emphasis for differing markets in Australia and overseas. In 1934 his only one-man London exhibition was praised for its 'healthy orthodoxy of treatment'. At the height of his fame, he was seen in a line of artistic descent from Landseer to Munnings. After George Lambert's death in 1930 Power was the acknowledged leader in Australia in equine subjects. By the mid-1940s however, his technical skill and subject matter were re-evaluated as unfashionable, as empty facility with the brush wasted on sentimental commonplaces and commercialism.

Power died at Richmond, Melbourne, on 3 January 1951 and was buried with Presbyterian forms in Brighton cemetery. He was survived by his second wife Margery Isabel, née Desmazures, whom he had married in Adelaide on 5 September 1936, and by a son from each marriage. He is widely represented in the main Australian galleries. A major exhibition in Sydney in 1985 affirmed a renewed interest in Power's work.

www.blondesfineart.com/harold-septimus-power-artist
adb.anu.edu.au/biography/power-harold-septimus-8089

Taken on: November 15, 2023

Sets appears in: • Beyond European Shores April 2024 • BCD Mtg Light & Shadow

Groups appears in: • Artistic Puzzles • Traditional Wooden Jigsaws more » • BCD Just Jigsaws « less

Camera: Sony DSC-HX90V, f/4.5, 1/25 sec, 9.2mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Sony DSC-HX90V
Aperture:	f/4.5
Exposure Time:	0.04 sec (1/25)
Focal Length:	9.2mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	-0.3 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	PaintShop Pro 19.00
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