Charles Conder was one of the youngest, most original and most talented members of the Heidelberg School of impressionist painters, and one of the few to achieve a lasting reputation outside Australia. His work hangs in many major collections, including the Tate Britain, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.


Paris beckoned early, and he soon fell in with the fin de si cle generation led by Oscar Wilde, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Aubrey Beardsley. He embraced Bohemia, was forever in debt, worked erratically but unceasingly and lived as if there were no tomorrow.


Conder was rescued from poverty by marriage to a wealthy Canadian widow, but his bohemian past eventually called in its account. Tragically, he descended into syphilitic madness and died in his fortieth year.


Conder's was a beguiling, charmed, desperate life. He was handsome, rakish, sociable and extraordinarily talented. Anne Galbally's splendid biography is as passionate and fascinating as her subject.