During a career that spanned Australia and the United Kingdom, Roy de Maistre exerted a strong influence on his contemporaries and was an early mentor of both Francis Bacon and Patrick White. Born in Bowral, New South Wales, de Maistre moved to Sydney with the intention of studying music and painting and trained at the Royal Art Society of New South Wales.
In 1923 de Maistre won the Society of Artists’ Travelling Art Scholarship and exhibited at the Paris Salon and Venice Biennale before returning to Australia in 1926. In 1930 he returned to England where he remained for the rest of his life, painting cubist-inspired interiors, still lifes, and religious and figure compositions.