Roy de Maistre

Roy De Maistre CBE (27 March 18941 March 1968) was an Australian artist of international fame. He is renowned in Australian art for his early experimentation with "colour-music", and is recognised as the first Australian artist to use pure abstraction. His later works were painted in a figurative style generally influenced by Cubism. His ''Stations of the Cross'' series hangs in Westminster Cathedral and works of his are hung in the Tate Gallery, London and in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.

Early life

Roy went by the name of Leroy Leveson Laurent Joseph De Maistre, but had been born as Leroy Livingstone de Mestre at Bowral, New South Wales on 27 March 1894 into a home of high social standing in the then Colony of New South Wales. He was the youngest son of Etienne Livingstone de Mestre (1832–1916), the thoroughbred racehorse trainer of the first two Melbourne Cup winners; and the grandson of Prosper de Mestre (1789–1844) a prominent Sydney businessman from 1818 to 1844.

De Maistre was educated, together with his brothers and sisters, by tutors and governesses at the family home near Sutton Forest. In 1913 Roy was sent to Sydney to continue his music and art studies. He studied the violin and viola at the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music, including playing the viola in the Sydney Orchestra. He studied painting at the Royal Art Society of New South Wales under Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo who encouraged interest in Post-Impressionism, alongside fellow students Norah Simpson, Grace Cossington Smith and Roland Wakelin. He produced works inspired by reproductions of European post-impressionists, such as van Gogh, Gauguin and Cézanne. Then he studied under Norman Carter and also at the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney.

World War I

In 1916, as art-student Roi Livingstone de Mestre, he joined the First Australian Imperial Force. He was accepted three times after initially being rejected because his chest measurement was allegedly undersized. It appears to be indicative of the great desire of the armed forces to procure men for the World War I war effort that they would have considered accepting De Maistre once, let alone three times in short succession – and indicative of his great desire to serve in the war effort that he continually rejoined even after he had found himself too weak to cope with the workload. In May 1916 he was accepted for the first time but discharged a month later in June as medically unfit. He joined again one month later in July, but unable to cope physically at his own request he was discharged two months later in September. He joined yet once more one month later in October and was sent to the Field Hospital at Liverpool to train as a medical orderly. Then three months later in January 1917 he again requested a discharge as he felt that the work was beyond him. Due to his general weakness and debility his request for discharge was easily accepted. His general weakness and debility was due to tuberculosis that he had been able to keep hidden from the army doctors, one of whom even described his illness as congenital. Each time he joined up his illness had beaten him, and he had been unable to continue. Tuberculosis was the reason why he had earlier given up any idea of pursuing a music career, and had turned solely to painting.

Painting

In November 1916, as Roi de Mestre, he first exhibited, showing Impressionist paintings concerned with the effects of light.

In 1917 he met Dr Charles Gordon Moffit from the Kenmore Hospital at Goulburn, with whom he was to work devising a "colour treatment" for shell-shocked soldiers by putting them in rooms painted in soothing colour combinations.
De Maistre developed an interest in "colour-music", his theory of colour harmonisation based on the relationship between colours of the spectrum and notes of the musical scale. With his ordered, analytical mind, he applied the theory of music to his painting. He worked with Adrian Verbrugghen, and then Roland Wakelin to devise a "colour-music" theory. In 1919 he held a joint exhibition with Wakelin titled ''Colour in Art'' to expound his theories. In this (at the time controversial) art exhibition the musician-turned-painter had chosen colours to harmonise like the notes in music. The exhibition showcased 'colour orchestration', an experiment on the interrelation between different hues on the colour spectrum and notes on the musical scale. For example, the note A was matched with the colour red. The only existing example of this experiment is ''Rhythmic composition in yellow green minor'' (1919), which visualises music slowly unravel through the flow of colours. This "colour-music" exhibition became part of Australia's art-folklore as "pictures you could whistle". Influenced by earlier exponents of "colour-music" theory in Europe and America, this exhibition has since been identified as the earliest experiment in pure abstractionism in Australia. His colour charts, showing musical notes corresponding to different hues, are now owned by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, with "colour music" gaining a permanent place in Australian art history.

De Maistre was also interested in interior decoration and the manner in which the colours within a room could impact upon the human psyche. While exhibiting traditional pieces of fine art in the ''Colour in Art'' exhibition, he also included a 'Colour Organisation in Interior Decoration' segment. In this part of the exhibition, De Maistre displayed domestic interiors based on his 'colour music'. Discs and scales to help home-owners integrate colour music into their own homes were made available for purchase. In 1924, this colour harmonising chart was further developed by Grace Brothers and placed for sale in their stores.

Inter-war years

After 1919, De Maistre virtually abandoned colour-music and abstraction, though in London in 1934 he reworked some of those same ideas. His paintings of 1921–22 are experiments in impersonal, unemotional tonalism, and from the 1930s he turned to a more recognisably figurative style of work generally influenced by Cubism.

In 1922 he had his first painting purchased by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, ''Still Life''.

In 1923 he went to Europe on a travelling Art Scholarship by the Sydney Society of Artists. He spent three years abroad, studying in London, and in France in Paris and Saint-Jean-de-Luz

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