Arthur Loureiro
1853 - 1932 A summer's day at the beach 1900-09- oil on board
'One name insufficiently familiar in recent art history of the colony, and scarcely represented in public collections, is that of the Portuguese Arthur Loureiro who arrived from England late in 1884 seeking warmer climes and became a prominent figure in the Melbourne art scene.
Having studied in Oporto, Lisbon, Rome, Paris and London, Loureiro brought to the local art scene a highly professional attitude and solid technical ability. He was progressive but by no means radical: capable of working in a wide variety of contemporary styles.
Early paintings are in what James Smith called the "paysage intime style of Jean Fran-gois Millet, Jules Dupré and Jules Bastien-Lepage."
Loureiro worked in oil, watercolour, charcoal, pencil and pastel and was said to have introduced the vogue for pastel portraiture in Australia which was taken up enthusiastically by Tom Roberts amongst others. His exhibited pictures range from religious cominissions, through animal paintings and intimate domestic genre scenes, to landscapes and subjects from Australian pioneering history. ' Jane Clark, Arthur Jose de Souza Loureiro 1853-1932, p95