Robert Ellis was born in England in 1929 and graduated from the Royal College of Art, London. He came to New Zealand in 1957 to take up a position as Senior Lecturer at Elam School of Fine Arts where he taught until 1994. Robert Ellis passed away in 2021.
He spent his early years in compulsory military training in the RAF in the aerial survey division as a photographer. His artists’ eye was influenced by this prolonged exposure to an aerial perspective. He arrived in Auckland, bought his first car and became fascinated by roads and created his Motorways series (1963 -1974) He transformed the urban environment of Auckland, its roads and communication networks into abstracted landscapes. His paintings address themes of urbanisation, subdivision and colonisation.
His work is held in the collections of the Auckland Art Gallery, Te Papa and in many private collections.
