Arthur Thomas 'A T' Woodward (1865–1943), painter and art scholar, was born in Birmingham, England. The artist studied under TR Abbett and ER Taylor at the Birmingham School of Art and the South Kensington Art Schools, London (now the Royal College of Art), being awarded a gold medal at South Kensington. Woodward then travelled to Europe to study in Paris and Antwerp. In 1889 Woodward, a qualified teacher and principal, migrated to Australia, settling in Victoria. He was appointed Art Director at the Sale School of Mines shortly after his arrival. This role was followed in 1894 by an appointment to the position of Head of the School of Art and Design at the Bendigo School of Mines. Woodward would hold this position until his retirement in 1912. His capacity as a teacher was highly regarded and his advice was sought by fellow teachers, and by teaching and technical academies. Woodward was strongly influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement both as an artist and as a teacher. Early in his role as Head of School at the Bendigo School of Mines, he introduced craft as a discipline. Woodward taught a number of leading artists of the early twentieth century including Inez Abbott, Thomas Henry Bone, Madge (Frances Margot) Freeman, Elma Roach, Ola Cohn and Agnes Goodsir. He is often noted in scholarship on these artists for the influence of his teaching on their artistic development. Woodward's pedagogical approach was characterised by an understanding of the European art scene and a focus on outdoor classes and life drawing. He encouraged his students, as artists, to travel and experience life, providing an excellent grounding for them to proceed to French academies. A number of his students, including Agnes Goodsir (whose first self portrait was acquired by the Gallery in March 2021), Inez Abbott and Ola Cohn, studied in France and England and were highly regarded in Europe.
Woodward was an equally important figure in Bendigo's cultural landscape. He was closely involved with the formation of the Bendigo Art Society in 1920 and the Bendigo Art Gallery. The Bendigo Art Gallery held a commemorative exhibition of the artist’s work in 1939 and awarded the A T Woodward Commemoration Prize in 1940. As an artist, Woodward is recognised for his portraits, genre works, and landscapes in oils and watercolours, painted in the English style of the late nineteenth century. His portrait subjects included Alfred Deakin, and photographs of the sitting are held by Deakin University. While often seen as the quintessential nineteenth-century artist, Woodward displayed a universality of interests across arts, culture and science. In 1899 he published a book of verse, From a Studio Window, and along with his interests in art, literature and music he had an intense research interest in the sciences of minerology and palaeontology. A collector of fossils, Woodward's discoveries in the field were honoured in the naming of the fossil Atopograptus woodwardia.
