Duncan Max Meldrum (1875-1955)

An Australian painter and teacher of note, Max Meldrum's scientific theories of painting were formed in the early part of the twentieth-century and influenced such students as Clarice Beckett and Hayward Veal.

Born in Edinburgh in 1875, Meldrum emigrated to Australia with his family in 1889 at the age of 14. He studied at the National Gallery School, Melbourne, from 1892 to 1899. After travelling to Europe with the assistance of the National Gallery Travelling Scholarship and studying in Paris, Meldrum returned to Melbourne in 1911 and from 1916 to 1926 he ran the Meldrum School of Painting. Here he advanced his theory of painting as a pure science, one of optical analysis, and his conviction that tone was the most important component of the art of painting.

Between 1926 and 1931 he lived in France, apart from six months in the United States in 1928 to lecture on his theory and methods of painting. He returned to Australia in 1931 and opened a new school in Collins Street, Melbourne. He died at Kew, Melbourne, on 6 June 1955, aged 79.

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