George Bell
George Bell
Standing Nude 1960
35.5×25cm
pen and ink on paper
George Bell
1878 – 1966
George Bell OBE was an Australian painter, teacher, and critic who contributed significantly to the advancement of the local Modern movement from the 1920s to the 1930s.
Born in Melbourne in 1878, he studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School under McCubbin. He also studied in Paris, and was elected a member of the Modern Society of Portrait Painters, London in 1908.
After spending 17 years abroad, including a period as an official war artist, he returned to Australia in 1920 and began teaching privately in 1922. In 1932 he founded the Bell-Shore School (with Arnold Shore), which became the centre of the modern movement in Melbourne.
In his Foreward to Classical Modernism, James Mollison wrote, ‘Bell occupies a unique position in the development of Australian art. After spending a significant portion of his career working in a traditional manner, he was converted to modern art and spent the remainder of his life instilling its principles into two generations of Australian painters.’
He died in Melbourne in 1966.
