Despite his Dutch name, Henri van Raalte was born in Lambeth, England, on 11 February 1881. His mother, Frances Elizabeth née Cable, was from the English county of Suffolk, while his father, Joel, was born in the small town of Raalte, Holland, but had lived in England since he was aged ten or eleven. Henri was encouraged by his father, a relative of the painter Jozef Israëls, to take up art, and at the age of eighteen he commenced studying under Edward Charles Clifford R.I. and William Monk R.E. at the Berry Art School, an institution which soon became amalgamated with the larger St. John’s Wood School of Art in London.

Van Raalte’s earliest known prints date from his time as an art student in London. Two 1900 etchings, Ye Olde Mermaid Inn, Rye and The Boat-Builder’s Shop, Rye, demonstrate the artist’s early ability as a printmaker. These images were reproduced in a special etching edition of The Studio (titled 'Modern Etching and Engraving’) in 1902, a major accomplishment for a young artist, even though he had been awarded an A.R.E. (Associate of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers) in 1901.

Despite early experiments in etching, van Raalte was encouraged to concentrate on drawing and painting. Dedication to such traditional skills saw him enter the Royal Academy schools and he later exhibited at the Royal Academy. During this period van Raalte visited his father’s homeland, and while there he drew many vernacular subjects, such as windmills and locals in traditional Dutch dress. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century van Raalte had returned to his first artistic love, etching. Several extant prints from this time include a series of genre etchings portraying bulldogs.

An undisclosed illness seems to have motivated the artist to travel to warmer climes, and in 1910 van Raalte migrated with his brother to Australia. Sea-sickness led to the artist’s decision to leave the ship at the first port of call, Fremantle, rather than at his planned destination, Melbourne. Soon after disembarking on 10 October 1910, van Raalte moved to the forested territory between Perth and Albany. For several years he worked as a timber-getter and seemingly abandoned art. Rather than resenting the landscape of this alien land, van Raalte became an admirer of the large eucalypt trees growing in this part of the country, and these forests became the inspiration for much of his later art work.

During his travels he met, and later married, Kitty Symers, a local woman ten years his junior. By 1914 the couple was living close to the centre of Perth at 28 Outram Street, West Perth. Van Raalte initially found work in a department store writing price tickets, but he soon made contact with the small art community in Perth and began to re-establish his art career. He began teaching art at Loretto Convent, Perth, and Queen’s School in Cottesloe. By 1916 he had established his own art school, nostalgically known as the Berry School of Art, at 35 Outram Street, West Perth. One of his best known pupils was Beatrice Darbyshire who became a skilled printmaker in later life. Under van Raalte’s leadership the Berry School of Art later moved to Hay Street and became known as the Perth Art School.

While van Raalte produced a few etchings in Perth he was limited by not having access to an etching press. In May 1918 the Perth engineering firm Hoskins & Co built a press to the artist’s specifications. The first print made on this machine was an aquatint of Perth’s Town Hall. With his own purpose built equipment, van Raalte actively involved himself in printmaking. As well as topographical views of Perth, the artist also took up the theme of the heroic gum tree, a subject popularised by the influence of the French artists of the Barbizon School on Australian artists such as Hans Heysen.

In October 1918 van Raalte exhibited several of his prints at the Society of Artists annual show in Sydney. This Sydney exhibition included van Raalte’s most highly regarded print, The Monarch, Kalgan River, W.A., a work described by Roger Butler as a “seminal image of the gum tree school of etching” (Butler 2007, p.31). This 1918 dry point made van Raalte’s name as a skilled etcher not only in Perth but also in the eastern states, thanks to positive praise received from Lionel Lindsay in the fifth number of Art in Australia in 1918. At this time, this work was selling at an unprecedented £52 a print, a brief but commercial highpoint in van Raalte’s art career.

Lindsay, himself a skilled etcher, wrote several positive reports on the artist in the years following the end of World War I, such as his 'Forward’ to the catalogue of van Raalte’s 1924 exhibition at Preece’s Gallery, Adelaide:

“Romantically, and of late with greater powers of realism, he has drawn the great gums and twisted branches with that insight which is stimulated by a passion of the mind. By the skillful use of chiaroscuro, he adds a poetic quality to his drawing, which is native to them, and is yet part of the great tradition which threads the history of Dutch art and Rembrandt to the brothers Maris…. van Raalte has the courage for the big plate, on which with singular breadth of vision he conveys his mental impression.”

The end of the Great War saw van Raalte hold several solo exhibitions in Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne. These exhibitions were all well received and he was now well established on the Australian art scene at a time of increasing interest in etching and printmaking. The popularity of etching saw the establishment of the Australian Painter-Etchers’ Society (APES) in 1921. Van Raalte took twenty-seven etchings to the first APES exhibition in Sydney in June 1921, and that year he was listed as an APES member.

Following the death of Gustave Barnes, van Raalte successfully applied for the position of Curator at the Art Gallery of South Australia. In late 1921 van Raalte, accompanied by his family and etching press, moved east and settled at 221 Wellington Square, North Adelaide. Despite the job-title of Curator, van Raalte’s public service position was that of managing director of the gallery and he reported to the SA Department of Education and the Board of Trustees. His main legacy at the Gallery was his attempt to improve the storage and conservation of works and the cataloguing of the collection, including the large print collection, then the largest in Australia. As well as his managerial and curatorial duties, van Raalte also gave several public lectures on the value of art and art history.

After a split from the South Australian Society of Arts in late 1923, van Raalte helped establish the United Arts Club (UAC) in Adelaide, and became the Club’s founding President. In late July the following year the UAC and several other organisations organised Adelaide Artists’ Week, an event that included a national art exhibition, concerts, as well as theatrical performances. This event helped establish Adelaide as an important centre of the arts in Australia.

Unused to the bureaucratic limitations expected of a senior public servant, Van Raalte had a troubled time working at the AGSA. He attempted to update the catalogue but was frustrated by indecision from the trustees. He considered resigning after Artists Week but persevered with attempts to catalogue the extensive print collection. During late 1925 van Raalte came into open conflict with the trustees’ chairman, Sir William Sowden, over several issues, and in January 1926 he resigned. Following his resignation he was commissioned to report on the condition of the AGSA collection. Van Raalte’s damming report was published in the [Adelaide] Register (18 February 1926) and during January and February 1926 there was much bitter debate in the Register over the reasons for van Raalte’s resignation.

Despite his work at the AGSA and with the UAC, van Raalte continued to work as a printmaker. While the tree portrait had dominated his work in Western Australia, the move to Adelaide saw the tree become more a supplementary subject in his larger landscape vision. With such high prices being charged for some of his prints, it was inevitable that the artist would be criticised. In the May 1922 issue of Art in Australia, Ronald Finlayson negatively commented on van Raalte’s work on show at the Adelaide APES exhibition:

“One is a little embarrassed in writing of this artist’s work. It has an air of being strong, even of being profound and dignified; and yet one is not quite sure. It does not seem to hold or compel one. The forms are massive but the background is often vague and indecisive, as if the etcher could not decide to sacrifice realism to romance.”

The artist had many solo exhibitions of his work in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne during the mid to late 1920s. These included important shows at W.H. Gill’s gallery in Melbourne, Gayfield Shaw’s and Anthony Horderns’ in Sydney, and several exhibitions at F.W. Preece’s in Adelaide. After his resignation from AGSA, van Raalte moved with his family to Second Valley, South Australia. There he motored the Rapid Bay district in his Model T Ford in search of subject matter for his work. During this time he continued with his printmaking and experimented with portraiture and coloured aquatints.

Prone to depression, which was exasperated by his dependence on alcohol, van Raalte was also often in financial difficulty. These problems seem to account for his shot-gun suicide on 4 November 1929, less than a week after Black Tuesday, the recognised start of the Great Depression. The forty-nine-year-old artist was survived by his widow, and three sons. In December 1929, a Memorial Exhibition of his work was held at the Argonaut Galleries in Adelaide. A well illustrated monograph of the artists work titled Henri van Raalte Master Printmaker was published by Arthur Spartalis Fine Art, Perth, in 1989.

Writers:

Silas Clifford-Smith Note:

Date written:

2010

Last updated:

2011

Status:

peer-reviewed