First contact with art and artists – Uncle Harry Holman, a glazier, frosts windows at the Royal Art Society School and brings home a school prospectus for Arthur.
Murch’s copy of A Condottierre by Lord Frederic Leighton
Murch takes up night classes for 2 years studying life drawing and painting under Antonio Dattilo Rubbo and James Jackson at the Royal Art Society
George Finey, Datillo Rubbo and unknown man 1920
Murch with bust of Datillo Rubbo; sculpted 1935. Photo taken c1985. The bust is in the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
Read more about Datillo Rubbo.
From September, is given one day a week by John Heine Co to study sculpture at East Sydney Technical College under Rayner Hoff
Awarded the New South Wales Society of Artists Scholarship by Bernard Hall, William Mcinnes and Charles Wheeler with the entries:
Meets George Washington Lambert and Edmund Harvey at the Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School. Lambert gives Murch a letter of introduction to his son Maurice in London. He also writes Murch some ‘tips for success’ on Coogee Bay Hotel letterhead:
It says: “In three months with the help of intelligent sympathetic Experts – you should cover quickly a rapid sketch course of sculpture and its history… In one week you should see that modern painting is emotional and therefore valueless. The Great paintings of the World are parallel to the great sculptures. They speak quietly. But they speak the Truth.”
Ria Murch writes: “The Travelling Scholar 1925-27. Murch was introduced to Edmund Harvey by G. W Lambert, and was delighted to find on board the ‘Hobson’s Bay’ that Harvey was not only a fellow passenger but also shared the same cabin. The two became life-long friends, first travelling in Europe studying at the same art schools and later working together with George Lambert. They shared the same affinities that Lambert experienced when he won the the travelling scholarship in 1900 and travelled with Hugh Ramsay. ”
They arrive in England on 14th July, 1925.
Murch, Harvey, Cecil Paget, Harold Paget, England 1925 or 26
Travels and studies art in Britain, France, Italy and Spain.
In England with his uncle Will Murch and Polly
Formal studies at Chelsea Polytechnic in London with Percy Jowett; The Old British School in Rome with Antonio Sciortino and at the Académie Julian in Paris
London 1926
Returns to Sydney late in the year and becomes Studio Assistant to George Washington Lambert working with other assistants Sten Snekker and Edmund Harvey on sculptural commissions including Henry Lawson in the Domain and the Unknown Soldier in St Mary’s Cathedral
L-R: Edmund Harvey, Sten Snekkar, George Lambert, Arthur Murch – in Lambert’s Randwick studio. The Henry Lawson statue in the background.
See George Lambert’s 1928 drawing of his Randwick studio featuring Lambert, Sten Snekkar, Arthur Murch, Edmund Harvey, Mrs Broomhead and young boy. The drawing is titled “The Broken Hand” and shows the team looking at the head of the swaggie that sits next to Henry Lawson in the statue. The drawing is in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.
Listen to the two-part audio recording of Harvey, Snekker and Murch discussing working with Lambert. Recorded at S. H. Ervin Gallery in 1978
Elected a member of the Society of Artists, Sydney and begins to exhibit regularly
1902 - 19191920 - 19281929 - 19391940 - 1949
