REID, STUART (1883-1971)

“Sunset (Outback Australia)” (c.1920)
Oil on board
44 x 54m
Signed lower left
*private collection, Sydney
 
Reid is a forgotten, but influential New Zealand Impressionist. He studied art in London before serving as an official WWI artist. He served in Gallipoli and Sinai with the Scottish Light Horse before transferring to the Royal Flying Corps in Palestine. Here he worked with renown Scottish artist, James McBey and became close friends with Colonel T.E. Lawrence aka Lawrence of Arabia. During this time Reid was commissioned to paint a number of works for the British Imperial War Museum. When he moved to back to NZ in 1922, then Sydney shortly after, he became well known for is horse portraits, including one of the famous Phar Lap, commissioned by his owner David Davis which hangs in the National Museum. A finalist in the Archibald Prize, he is certainly one of New Zealand's most underrated painters of the early 20th century.