Roy de Maistre (Roi (Leroy) de Mestre) CBE (1894-1968), painter, studied music at the Sydney Conservatorium, but was also a student at the RAS School with Dattilo Rubbo and later the Sydney Art School with Julian Ashton. A pioneer of post-impressionism and cubism in New South Wales, he first exhibited with Roland Wakelin and Grace Cossington Smith in Sydney in 1916. During the war he became fascinated by the relationship between music and colour, and in 1919 he painted some of the earliest purely abstract art in Australia, if not the world. Over the 1920s he travelled back and forth between Europe and Australia, founding the Contemporary Group with Thea Proctor and George Lambert, but in 1930 he settled in London, where he concocted a new identity and lived until his death. He was a dear friend of Patrick White, who became a major collector of his work, and Francis Bacon, who was significantly influenced by de Maistre's painting style. He was also friendly with John Rothenstein, art critic and director of the Tate Gallery, and after several exhibitions in England and a conversion to Catholicism he was commissioned to paint the Stations of the Cross for Westminster Cathedral. He is represented in all major Australian galleries, and the Tate.
