Based on a sketch made during Long’s voyage between Australia and Europe in 1922, an oil painting, Street scene, Alexandria, was shown in the ‘Royal Art Society of NSW exhibition’, in July 1925, where a critic praised its ‘sharp contrasts in sunlight and shadow, and its excellent group of figures at the street corner’ (SMH, 7 July 1925).

When shown in Adelaide, later in the year, the painting again elicited a positive critical response:

With characteristic strength and directness, Long has created an impression of intense tropical heat.
This is suggested in the flat blue heat
of the sky, the glare of the sunlit buildings on one side of the street, and the contrasted depth of shadow from those opposite. The vivid picturesqueness of Oriental garb on a few scattered pedestrians afford splashes of colour to offset a more shadowed group in the foreground. The handling is delightfully broad and sketchy, and the masses are arranged with the skill of a finished craftsman (Register, Adelaide, 8 October 1925).

While both reviews commended Long’s handling of Egypt’s brilliant light, when the work was later shown at Sedon Galleries in Melbourne in 1931, Arthur Streeton, who had himself travelled to Cairo in 1897, observed that while the work had ‘a strong composition’, it was ‘too cold in the shadows for a true rendering of Egyptian sunlight’. (Argus, Melbourne, 13 October 1931). The coldness Streeton complained of is perhaps most closely realised in this blue version of the print.

A copy of Street scene, Alexandria was first exhibited in 1937 at the ‘Painter–Etchers and Graphic Art Society of Australia exhibition’, Sydney, 23 November – 17 December (138). Copies in brown ink are held by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the New England Regional Art Museum and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

Emma Kindred

Based on a sketch made during Long’s voyage between Australia and Europe in 1922, an oil painting, Street scene, Alexandria, was shown in the ‘Royal Art Society of NSW exhibition’, in July 1925, where a critic praised its ‘sharp contrasts in sunlight and shadow, and its excellent group of figures at the street corner’ (SMH, 7 July 1925).

When shown in Adelaide, later in the year, the painting again elicited a positive critical response:

With characteristic strength and directness, Long has created an impression of intense tropical heat.
This is suggested in the flat blue heat
of the sky, the glare of the sunlit buildings on one side of the street, and the contrasted depth of shadow from those opposite. The vivid picturesqueness of Oriental garb on a few scattered pedestrians afford splashes of colour to offset a more shadowed group in the foreground. The handling is delightfully broad and sketchy, and the masses are arranged with the skill of a finished craftsman (Register, Adelaide, 8 October 1925).

While both reviews commended Long’s handling of Egypt’s brilliant light, when the work was later shown at Sedon Galleries in Melbourne in 1931, Arthur Streeton, who had himself travelled to Cairo in 1897, observed that while the work had ‘a strong composition’, it was ‘too cold in the shadows for a true rendering of Egyptian sunlight’. (Argus, Melbourne, 13 October 1931). The coldness Streeton complained of is perhaps most closely realised in this blue version of the print.

A copy of Street scene, Alexandria was first exhibited in 1937 at the ‘Painter–Etchers and Graphic Art Society of Australia exhibition’, Sydney, 23 November – 17 December (138). Copies in brown ink are held by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the New England Regional Art Museum and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

Emma Kindred