Early Life
Gruner was born in Gisborne, New Zealand, younger son of Elliott Grüner, a Norwegian-born bailiff, and his Irish wife Mary Ann, who died in 1922. Gruner was brought to Sydney before he was a year old and at an early age showed a desire to draw. When about 12 years old his mother took him to Julian Ashton who gave him his first lessons in art. At 14 years of age he obtained a position in a shop where he worked from 7.40 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. to help to maintain the household after his father and older brother died.
Read more about this topic: Elioth Gruner
Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)