Lloyd Rees AC CMG (1895–1988), artist and teacher, studied art in Brisbane from 1910 to 1916, and in England and Europe in the early 1920s. A prominent landscape artist, his works drew from both the European and Australian landscape tradition, and often included the Sydney Harbour foreshore and suburbs. After building a holiday house on the south coast of New South Wales, he painted many landscapes of the area. Later, when his son settled in Hobart in the late 1960s, his works began to include the Tasmanian landscape. Rees' landscapes won wide recognition among both the public and the art world with their unpretentious style which combined careful analysis and sensuality. During his long career he produced paintings, prints and drawings, as well as lecturing in painting and drawing at the University of Sydney. Awarded the Wynne Prize in 1950 and 1982, Rees wrote two memoirs The Small Treasures of a Lifetime (1969) and Peaks and Valleys (1985).
As Greg Weight noted of Rees in his book Australian Artists, meeting the artist 'was like being in the presence of a wise old sage, the unofficial elder of a tribe of artists … On the few times I photographed him I came away with some of my most treasured images of an artist'.
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
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