Charles Edward Conder (24 October, 1868 - 9 February, 1909) was an English-born painter, who emigrated to Australia and was a key figure in the Heidelberg School, arguably the beginning of a distinctively Australian tradition in Western art.

Born in Tottenham, Middlesex, he spent several years as a young child in India before the death of his mother and a subseqent education in an English boarding school. Sent to Sydney in 1884 in an attempt by his father to discourage him from his artworks, he initially worked as a surveyor in country New South Wales, but by 1886 had begun lessons and had joined the local art society.

Meeting Tom Roberts in 1888, he decided to move to Melbourne. Short of cash, the attractive Conder apparently paid off his landlady by physical means, catching syphilis in the process, which was to plague the later years of his life. In the two years in Melbourne Conder worked with the other members of the school and produced a number of famous works, including "Under The Southern Sun". This painting clearly shows the burning sunlight and desolation that can be inflicted by an Australian drought.

Conder left Australia in 1890, and spent the rest of his life in Europe, mainly England, but visiting France on many occasions. His art was better received in England than in Paris. In 1892, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec painted his portrait, a portrait that now hangs in the National Gallery of Australia. He continued to paint, but his output was severely affected by continual poor health, including paralysis and a bout of delirium tremens. He married a wealthy widow, Stella Maris Bradford (nee MacAdams) in 1901, giving him financial security. His latter works are not nearly as well critically-regarded as his earlier Australian paintings.

He spent the last year of his life in a sanitorium before dying of "general paresis of the insane", in modern terms tertiary syphilis. In death, Conder's work was rated highly by many notable artists, such as Pissarro and Degas.

External links

• "Artist's footsteps", source of most material for this article
• Conder collection, National Gallery of Victoria
• Biography from Bulletin magazine.