A Pioneer of the Australian Landscape Born in Hamilton, Scotland, John Mather was a prominent Scottish-Australian painter and etcher. After studying at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts and the school of the National Gallery in Edinburgh, he traveled to Paris and London before emigrating to Melbourne in 1878. As an early practitioner of painting en plein air in Victoria, Mather sought to faithfully represent the light and color of the Australian landscape, moving away from earlier European tones to achieve a closer visual truth. He was a founding member of the Australian Artists A…