B. 1875 – 1955

Max Meldrum was born in Scotland, relocating to Australia with his family at age 14. He studied at the National Gallery School under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall and in 1899, won a travelling scholarship. Absorbing the lessons of classical art and rejecting modernism, on Meldrum’s return to Australia he founded Tonalism. 

A movement that treated tone as the most important component of an image, tonalism sought to objectively capture the relationship between tones – not colours – in nature. By focusing on tone, Meldrum believed a work of art could create a unified sensation of light, atmosphere, space and distance.

Meldrum’s tonalism was hugely influential in Melbourne, informing the work of artists like Clarice Beckett and Colin Colahan. He was also a controversial figure, staunchly opposed to modernism and at times, reactionary. He won the Archibald Prize in 1939 and 1940, and his work lives on across public collections including at the National Gallery of Australia. 

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