Hugh Ramsay: Bright Star

Hugh Ramsay, who can be considered as the John Keats of Australian art, wrote in a letter in 1898 to one of his brothers:

Keats, one of the finest lyric poets in the English language, fused an indebtedness to the past with a desire to bring what he had learned into the present and reinvent the possibilities of creative endeavour.

When he wrote in admiration of Keats, Ramsay would not have known the uncanny parallels between them that would ensue. For, like Keats, who died from tuberculosis at the age of twenty-five, Ramsay would succumb to the same illness and have his life taken from him when he was only twenty-eight. Both the poet and artist have left remarkable legacies that belie their short lives.

From early in his artistic career, Ramsay’s development was on the fast track. Passionate about becoming an artist, he entered the National Gallery School in Melbourne at the tender age of sixteen. His youth earned him the name ‘Young Hughie’, the age disparity becoming especially marked when he advanced more quickly than most. Between 1895 and 1899, he won numerous prizes and quickly earned the respect of his teachers and peers.

Ramsay sought to capture the subtleties of tonal painting with an emphasis on the interplay of light and shadow. In his standout early work Seated girl c 1897, the model’s hair is parted and drawn to the front to reveal the apex of her neck. The subtle tension of revealing and concealing renders the work poignantly sensual. The painting exudes a compelling presence that continues to resonate into the twenty-first century.

In 1900, Ramsay fulfilled his dream of travelling to Paris, where he lived and worked in a studio he shared with James MacDonald in Montparnasse, in the heart of the Latin Quarter. This area was a meeting place for many artists from around the world, including Australians such as MacDonald, Ambrose Patterson as well as George and Amy Lambert, who developed a close friendship with Ramsay.

Long considered an artist’s artist, Ramsay was admired, among other things, for his emphasis on the processes of making art. As contemporary artist Patrick Pound has written: ‘One of the attractions to Ramsay’s work for me is his direct referencing of the act of painting — the studio ritual if you will — and the material qualities of the stuff of paint … he lets the paint speak for itself and at the same time for the thing it models. What is, up close, revealed to be a juicy gesture complete with proudly exposed brush marks becomes an exquisite and convincing fold of canvas caught in a splash of light as you retreat to look at the picture.’

His second year in Paris brought phenomenal success when four of his paintings were included in the New Salon. This was an unprecedented honour for an Australian artist. As he wrote to his father on 28 March 1902:

Three of the four paintings shown in the New Salon were included in the Gallery’s retrospective: Jeanne, painted in 1901, and Still life — books, mask and lamp and A lady of Cleveland, undertaken the following year. Jeanne is a poignant portrait of his concierge’s daughter. To hold her attention Ramsay promised her stamps from Australia, as stamp collecting was something of a craze in Paris at the time.

Wearing a slate blue dress, Jeanne is perched to one side of a leather chair. Ramsay paid great attention to her attire — the lacy white collar, black-and-white cuffs, long black socks slightly rolling down and neat black shoes. The surface is thinly painted in delicate veils of colour recalling the work of James Abbott McNeill Whistler, which he greatly admired for its subtle delicacy of touch and tone.

Jeanne bears comparison with Miss Nellie Patterson 1903, commissioned by the internationally celebrated opera singer Dame Nellie Melba. These two portraits and his earlier Jessie with doll 1897, are some of the finest child portraits in the history of Australian art. In Miss Nellie Patterson, the bravura brushwork pays homage to John Singer Sargent. After looking closely at Sargent’s works in London, Ramsay wrote to Norman Carter on 11 June 1902: ‘’.

Ramsay’s portrait is one of great conviction, with care given to Nellie’s facial features, her hair tied at the side with a bow, and to the sheen and textures of her party dress, which was a present her aunt bought for her in Paris.

Ramsay had met Nellie Melba in his Paris studio following his Salon success. It was a great honour and an overwhelming experience for him to have the diva visit his humble studio in Montparnasse. Melba, who supported a number of Australian artists, was particularly taken with Ramsay and commissioned him to paint her portrait back in London. Although a small painting and a study of Melba’s portrait were undertaken, the full-length portrait was never completed. It was in London that Ramsay became seriously ill and was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Just at the point that he was receiving great acclaim, he was told he needed to return to Australia. It was devastating news.

During his time away, he had been communicating with his family, as attested to in his lively, informative letters held in the Ramsay Family Archive at the National Gallery. His closeness to his siblings is also apparent in some of his best portraits. Two girls in white (also known as The sisters) 1904 reveals how much he had learned while in Paris and London, including from Sargent’s paintings. In this painting, he made these lessons his own. His sisters Madge and Nell are dressed in their finery, as though they have returned from a ball. They are looking with concern at their critically ill brother who is defying doctor’s orders to rest.

Beyond his evident mastery of technique in the flesh-tones and sumptuous dresses, Ramsay brings his sisters close up into our field of vision. There is a compression of feeling between the artist and the sitters that invests these portraits with a distinctive, edgy and engaging presence. From the time it was first exhibited, Two girls in white was admired by artists and rightly regarded as a triumph. It was the masterpiece of his career.

Brisbane-based Robert Forster, musician and co-founder of the band The Go-Betweens, recalls the profound impression that Ramsay’s art made on him when he saw Two girls in white at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He also remarked, ‘I love Keats and can see that connection very strongly. Ramsay was very dynamic for his times. His self-portraiture is very lively and compelling and at one with contemporary sensibilities’.

The last word goes to one of Ramsay’s early mentors, John Longstaff, who supported him throughout his life. Following Ramsay’s untimely death, Longstaff wrote to the artist’s brother John in 1906:

Hugh Ramsay is on display at the National Gallery 30 Nov 2019 — 29 Mar 2020.