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The Artists

Julian Richard Ashton (b.1913)

Julian Ashton was born in Sydney, the son of journalist and landscape painter Julian Howard Ashton (1877-1964). The younger Ashton studied under his grandfather, Julian Rossi Ashton, at the Sydney Art School (later the Julian Ashton Art School) from 1929 to 1933. In 1935 he joined the crew of the sailing ship the Joseph Conrad. While he travelled he produced the work that formed the basis of his first exhibition.

Returning to Sydney, Ashton worked as a freelance artist and continued to exhibit frequently with the Society of Artists, the Australian Watercolour Institute, and the Royal Art Society of New South Wales. In 1942, during active service with the Australian Imperial Force in New Guinea, he was appointed official war artist of the military history section of the Australian War Memorial.

In 1948 he was appointed Art and Publicity officer for the NSW Department of Tourist Activities and Immigration, from which he resigned in 1960 to take over the directorship of the Julian Ashton Art School with his wife, Wendreda Elliot Smith. In 1977 the directorship of the school passed to their eldest son.

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