ABBOTT, HAROLD (1906-1986)

**ON HOLD - EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST**
 
"Poinsettias" (1936)
oil on card
35.5 x 25.5cm
signed lower left
*private collection, Sydney
 
Harold Frederick Abbott was a respected Australian portrait painter, an Official War artist and art teacher. He started studying part-time art at Sydney Art School at 17. In 1931 he moved to London for two years to study at the Royal Academy, funded by the NSW Society of Artists Travelling Scholarship. In 1934–1940 he was a finalist in the Archibald Prize and in 1940 he won the Sulman Prize. In 1941 he enlisted in the AIF. In 1943 he was appointed a war artist in 2/9th Field Regiment with the rank of lieutenant. For twenty years after the war, Abbott did little painting or exhibiting; he taught at the National Art School in Sydney, where he later became the head and State Supervisor of Art. Upon retirement in the late 1960s he returned to painting, but with a quite different style, and held 8 solo exhibitions. His work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Australian War Memorial, and in various regional art galleries.