(b Clunes, Victoria, 10 March 1861; d Melbourne, 1 Oct 1941). Australian painter. From 1882 he studied at the Art School of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, where he was awarded the first travelling scholarship in 1887 for a sentimental narrative painting, Breaking the News (Perth, A.G. W. Australia). He left for Paris in 1887, studying at Fernand Cormon’s studio and the Académie Colarossi. While in France, Longstaff visited his compatriot John Peter Russell at Belle Ile in 1889 and was influenced briefly by the latter’s ‘impressionist’ style. Certain works by Longstaff from this period, such as Lady in Grey (1890; Melbourne, N.G. Victoria), reveal the influence of Whistler and the Aesthetic movement, as well as the portraiture of Velázquez, which he had studied in Spain for three months. While the bulk of his oeuvre was portraiture, his large allegorical work The Sirens (Melbourne, N.G. Victoria) was acclaimed at the Salon of 1892 in Paris and at the Royal Academy, London, in 1894.