Original artwork description:

This painting ‘Melbourne – The Inner City’ was inspired by one of my favourite activities when visiting Melbourne, walking the inner city suburbs of Collingwood, Richmond and Fitzroy.
The city of Melbourne was laid out in 1837 and included a radius of 10 km from the CBD. I did not include any public piazzas or parks, reputedly to avoid any facilitation of protests or public loitering.
The huge surge in immigration brought about by the Gold Rush in the 1850s quickly outgrew the 10 km grid. The city spread to wealthy new suburbs, while the working classes settled in the inner suburbs of Richmond, Collingwood and Fitzroy. By the 1880’s these inner suburbs had become slums.
After World War II, there was increased migration from Europe, including from Italy, Greece, The Netherlands, and Germany. Many of whom took up residence in the inner suburbs. Later, in the migrants came from Yugoslavia, Turkey, Hungary and Lebanon.
In the 1960’s some of the old inner-city slums were bulldozed and the dislocated tenants were housed in high-rise blocks of state-owned apartments.
As manufacturing moved to the outer suburbs, industrial employment in the old working class inner suburbs declined, with these areas rapidly gentrifying in the 1990s and 2000s.
Although largely gentrified, there are still areas showing the history of these wonderful inner city suburbs of Melbourne.

Materials used:

oil paint and acrylic paint

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