Works included in this catalogue
Keene Interior of a Shop {1898} NGV [DR]
Keene Management 1868 {1892} NGV [DR]
Keene’s black and white style was widely admired and influential in the later 19th and earlier 20th centuries. Adolf von Menzel, for instance (see Menzel Man’s Head 1886 {1895} NGV [DR]), is said to have subscribed to Punch purely for the sake of Keene’s drawings.
Besides the two works bought in the 1890s (see above), further examples were selected by Bernard Hall in the first group of Felton Bequest purchases in 1905.
Later, Lionel Lindsay’s very extensive private collection of studies and finished drawings by Keene was acquired, also through the Felton Bequest (1951). As a result, the NGV now owns over 1500 of his original drawings, as well as a pencil drawing of Keene sketching, by Whistler (Felton Bequest, 1953). His etchings were also prized by contemporaries.
Refs.
For the artist, see AKL 79 (2013), pp.505-7; Bénézit 7, pp.1136-37; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Keene_%28artist%29; http://punch.photoshelter.com/gallery/Charles-Keene-Cartoons/G0000hDTxc.NdmsI/ and http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/keene/goldman.html (mentioning Menzel’s admiration). For the Keene drawings acquired later for the NGV, see http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/3621/ and Poynter, Mr Felton’s Bequests(2003/2008), pp.261 and 483; and for the Whistler drawing, see http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/42661/