Roy de Maistre

Bio

Roy de Maistre (1894–1968) was an Australian modernist painter who is most widely recognised in Australian art history for his radical experimentations with “colour-music”. He has been credited as being one of the first settler artists to use pure abstraction. His later figurative work was heavily influenced by Cubism. De Maistre initially studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, later enrolling in classes with Antonio Datillo-Rubbo at the Royal Art Society where he started painting in a style influenced by post-impressionist artists like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne. After briefly serving in the Australian Army during the First World War, de Maistre was inspired by the colour-therapy treatment administered to shell-shocked soldiers.

De Maistre emigrated to London in 1930 where he continued to make work along modernist lines. He met Francis Bacon in London in 1930, the two shared a love for French art and culture. Bacon and de Maistre were briefly sexually involved in the 1930s, and occupied studios at Carlyle Studios on King’s Road, Chelsea. De Maistre's portrait of Bacon was made in 1935. It was while de Maistre was in London that he met Australian novelist Patrick White, with whom he also had a brief affair. The two became close friends, with de Maistre serving as an "aesthetic and intellectual mentor" to White[1]. He painted a portrait of White in 1939. De Maistre exhibited at numerous galleries and was given a retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1960. His works are held in major museums and collections in Australia and internationally, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Tate Britain.

[1] Elizabeth Webby, "Patrick Victor (Paddy) White (1912–1990)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 8, 2012.

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