Recovering in London from a severe bout of Spanish Flu in January 1919, Long was determined to ‘get a good grounding’ in the etching process before returning to Australia and resuming his practice of seamlessly moving between the creative disciplines of painting and printmaking.

When approaching his early printmaking, Long was often thinking in terms of painting. Yet, here, in this seductive velveteen watercolour, we see him reach a point of creative maturation. For the first time, we witness the artist thinking in terms of printmaking while painting. Inspired by his earlier aquatint, Moonrise pastoral 1918
(cat 70), Long translates the alchemy of this tonal printmaking process into bleeding fields of liquid gouache, which creates a surface as rich in texture as any preceding print. The artist achieves a measured tonality that references the slow ritual of the aquatint printing process while simultaneously capturing the diffuse effects of twilight. Only the loosely mottled vegetation openly reveals Moonrise as a rapidly painted creation.

Working in early 1919, in the dark shadow of the Great War, and having survived the influenza pandemic, it is as though Long responds to the fact of his mortality by revisiting his reflective moonrise theme. By pouring colour into this new version he signals a personal sense of renewal and, perhaps feeling grateful to have witnessed the close of another day, Long poignantly frames the slumbering moon.

It is likely that this watercolour was first exhibited in June 1921 at Adolph W. Albers Studio, 11 Bond Street, Sydney, when it was described by the critic of the Daily Telegraph as a scene on the Wandle, ‘painted with characteristic delicacy of tone and colour, and the decorative feeling which makes this artist’s work so much sought after’ (10 June 1921).

Tracey Lock-Weir

Recovering in London from a severe bout of Spanish Flu in January 1919, Long was determined to ‘get a good grounding’ in the etching process before returning to Australia and resuming his practice of seamlessly moving between the creative disciplines of painting and printmaking.

When approaching his early printmaking, Long was often thinking in terms of painting. Yet, here, in this seductive velveteen watercolour, we see him reach a point of creative maturation. For the first time, we witness the artist thinking in terms of printmaking while painting. Inspired by his earlier aquatint, Moonrise pastoral 1918
(cat 70), Long translates the alchemy of this tonal printmaking process into bleeding fields of liquid gouache, which creates a surface as rich in texture as any preceding print. The artist achieves a measured tonality that references the slow ritual of the aquatint printing process while simultaneously capturing the diffuse effects of twilight. Only the loosely mottled vegetation openly reveals Moonrise as a rapidly painted creation.

Working in early 1919, in the dark shadow of the Great War, and having survived the influenza pandemic, it is as though Long responds to the fact of his mortality by revisiting his reflective moonrise theme. By pouring colour into this new version he signals a personal sense of renewal and, perhaps feeling grateful to have witnessed the close of another day, Long poignantly frames the slumbering moon.

It is likely that this watercolour was first exhibited in June 1921 at Adolph W. Albers Studio, 11 Bond Street, Sydney, when it was described by the critic of the Daily Telegraph as a scene on the Wandle, ‘painted with characteristic delicacy of tone and colour, and the decorative feeling which makes this artist’s work so much sought after’ (10 June 1921).

Tracey Lock-Weir