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Rex Wood (6 April 1906 – 1970) was a South Australian artist who lived for many years in Portugal.

History

He was born Thomas Percy Reginald Wood in Laura, South Australia, the eldest of four boys born to Rev. Tom Percy Wood and Fannie née Newbury. He was brother to Jack Newbury Wood Dean Charlton Wood and Noel Herbert Wood who was also an artist. Their grandfather Thomas Percy Wood, also an Anglican minister in South Australia, was an accomplished watercolorist.

Wood studied painting at the South Australian School of Art under Mary Packer Harris (1891–1978), and was soon recognised as a realist in a variety of mediums. He was represented in a number of exhibitions alongside fellow artists including Ivor Hele and Hans Heysen.

Wood began acting as art critic for The News in 1934, and his one-man exhibition in 1935 was well received. He had another exhibition in 1937, at the eve of his departure for England and the Continent.

He studied at the Anglo-French Art Centre at St John's Wood and the Southampton Row School of Art. He spent much of the war years in Portugal, maintaining some contact with Australia, sending the occasional column to The News, and purchasing some works for the Art Gallery of South Australia. He visited Australia in the mid-1950s, and then returned to Portugal, where he died in Lisbon in 1970.

Works

• Art Gallery of New South Wales
• The Hamilton Gallery of Hamilton, Victoria has a portrait Vera Van Ry by Rex Wood
• The State Library of South Australia has a photograph and oil painting (1964) of Josephine Piazza "Madame Josephine", both by Rex Wood.
• National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

References

1. Registry of BD&M. SA Government. p. 763/287.
2. ^ "Family Notices". The Register (Adelaide). Vol. LXXI, no. 18, 533. South Australia. 7 April 1906. p. 6. Retrieved 1 March 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
3. "Rex Thomas Percy Reginald Wood Australia, Britain, 1908-70". Art Sales Digest. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
4. Tannock, Michael (1978). Portuguese 20th Century Artists: A Biographical Dictionary. Phillimore. ISBN 978-0-85033-312-1.
5. Glenn R. Cooke. "Noel Wood b. 1912". Design and Art Australia On-line. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
6. Galleries, Deutsher; Butler, Roger; Witt, Dixie (1978). A Survey of Australian Relief Prints, 1900/1950. Deutsher Galleries. ISBN 978-0-908180-00-4.
7. "Exhibition Of Works Of Rex Wood". The Advertiser (Adelaide). South Australia. 26 June 1935. p. 16. Retrieved 31 August 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
8. "Arresting Work by Rex Wood". The News (Adelaide). Vol. XXIX, no. 4, 461. South Australia. 9 November 1937. p. 9. Retrieved 31 August 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
9. ""Nude," New London Purchase, At Gallery Soon". The Advertiser (Adelaide). South Australia. 14 June 1946. p. 12. Retrieved 31 August 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
10. ^ "Rex Wood". Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
11. Alan McCulloch, Encyclopedia of Australian Art, first edition 1968; Hutchinson of London
12. "Josephine Piazza". State Library of South Australia. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
13. Wood, Rex. "not titled [Woman on a chaise lounge]". Item held by National Gallery of Australia.

• Australian artists
• 1906 births
• 1970 deaths
• Artists from South Australia