New Zealand-born painter who became a pioneer of abstract art in Australia. He was born in Wellington, where he trained as an architect. After serving in Egypt and Gallipoli in the First World War, he travelled widely. His intermittent training as a painter included periods of study at the *Slade School, London, between 1929 and 1938. In 1938 he returned to New Zealand, then settled in Sydney, Australia, soon afterwards. He lived a reclusive life and did not exhibit until 1952, when he was nearly 60 (he inherited a shipping fortune, and so had no need to make money from his work). His first one-man exhibition was at the Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, in 1957, and his eccentric, diffident personality helped to promote him quickly to the status of a cult figure.