George Lambert Biography

  George Washington Thomas Lambert (1873 – May 28, 1930) was an Australian artist, known principally for portrait paintings and as a war artist during the First World War.

  Born in St Petersburg, Russia, Lambert arrived in Australia in 1887 and exhibited his first painting at the Royal Art Society in 1894. Lambert began painting full time in 1896. In 1899 Lambert won the Wynne Prize with Across the Blacksoil Plains. Studied at Academie Julian in Sydney until 1900. Lambert won a travelling scholarship for 150 pounds from the government of New South Wales. Lambert spent a year in Paris before moving to London where he exhibited at the Royal Academy. Lambert was awarded a silver medal at an international exhibition for his painting The Sonnet in Barcelona in 1911. Lambert was most known during this time as a portrait artist.

  Became an official Australian war artist in 1917 during the First World War. His painting Anzac, the landing 1915 of the landings on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey, is the largest painting at the Australian War Memorial collection. Lambert travelled to Gallipoli in 1919 to make sketches for the painting.

  He returned to Australia in 1921, where he had success in Melbourne with a one man show at Fine Art Society gallery. Lambert was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1922. In 1927 Lambert won the Archibald Prize, Australia’s most prestigious art prize for portraiture, with his painting titled Mrs Murdoch. Lambert died on May 28, 1930.
George Lambert was the father of Constant Lambert, the British composer and conductor, born in London in 1905.