Brief Biography-Charles Edward Conder, from Middlesex, England, emigrated to Australia when he was seventeen. His father, a civil engineer, got him to work for his uncle in the Lands Department in New South Wales. Charles preferred sketching landscapes rather than surveying them.
He became a lithographer in Sydney and published work in the Illustrated Sydney News. He studied at the Art Society of New South Wales and became acquainted with Julian Ashton, who took him on sketching trips. He met Arthur Streeton and worked alongside Tom Roberts in his studio when he moved to Melbourne. He painted with these artists and others at the Eaglemont camp on summer weekends; the group became known as the Heidelberg School.
In 1890 he returned to England and visited Paris regularly, where he studied at Fernand Cormon's atelier. The works of Toulouse Lautrec had a strong influence on him. He settled in England and married a wealthy Canadian lady, Stella Maris Belford, which somewhat eased his financial circumstances. Sadly, he suffered from syphilis for some years, and a sanatorium admitted him, where he died after a year in 1919.