RUPERT BUNNY Australian, 1864-1947

Mrs G. Sands, Perth, in 1970

Private collection, Melbourne; purchased by the present owner's mother

Charles Haddon Spurgeon Chambers (1860-1921), the first Australian dramatist to win international fame, was born in Sydney of Irish parents. After short stints working for the New South Wales Mines Department and as a boundary rider near Camden, he visited Ulster. He embarked on his theatrical career and in 1882 settled in England. His first great stage success was Captain Swift, the tale of a bushranger, which opened in 1888 and eventually toured all over England, to America and Australia. Numerous other dramas and melodramas followed.¹

Chambers was well known for the youthful looks, charm and sense of humour captured by Rupert Bunny in this lively oil sketch. He knew Phil May and helped secure his services for the Sydney Bulletin. He is likely to have met Bunny around 1900, when the artist also painted Dame Nellie Melba and Ada Crossley among other Australian musical and theatrical personalities based in London. Haddon Chambers had coached Melba in acting in her earlier London days.

1. B. G. Andrews in Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 7, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1979, p. 603.