Roy De Maistre - The English Years 1930-1968 (Hardcover, New edition)

In 1930 Roy de Maistre was thirty-six years old. Unable to make a living in art in Sydney - largely due, he felt, to the lack of acceptance of his modernist style - he decided to leave Australia and try his luck in England. Within a few months of his arrival, de Maistre had allied himself with modern art there. Although he never quite made the grade of reaching the forefront of the avant garde, he hovered on its fringes - the edge of the Mayor Gallery 'circle', the edge of the Unit One group, the edge of the introduction of Surrealism to England. He had plans for making a film based on his own colour-music theories in 1937 when avant garde film making was popular in England; he was friendly with Francis Bacon before the latter started achieving fame; he worked on a project to set up an artists' co-operative similar to the London Artists Association; he inspired a serious commitment to work in younger artists and writers - including Patrick White.