Emanuel Phillips Fox
A love story
Fox, who spent much of his working life in England and France,
developed a style that epitomises the gilded era marked by the
reign of King Edward VII. A student of the National Gallery
School, Melbourne (1878-1886), Fox went to France in 1887 where he
studied at École des Beaux Arts and spent some time with plein air
artists in France and England before returning to establish an art
school in Melbourne with Tudor St George in 1893.
One of three paintings exhibited by Fox when he made his debut
at the Royal Academy, A love story was considered to be one of the
most truthful representations of atmosphere and light in the
exhibition. Based on an earlier version painted in 1901 for
which one of his students Ursula Foster was the model, the painting
shows an elegantly dressed young lady reading a novel while lying
in a hammock in the shade of a tree on a summer's day. With
its restricted palette and liberal use of white and broken
brushwork, Phillips Fox has created an image of carefree relaxation
which is bathed with colour and light.