Austen A. Deans New Zealand, 1915-2011
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About Austen A. Deans
Descendant of an early Canterbury pioneering family, Austen Deans was born in 1915 in Christchurch and studied at the Canterbury School of Art. In 1939 he volunteered for army service. He was in Crete with the 20th Battalion to Egypt when he was commissioned as a war artist. Two days later he was wounded in the Battle of Crete and taken prisoner by the Germans. He remained in prisoner of war camps for the rest of the war. In January 1947 Austen married Elizabeth Hutton and the following year the couple and the first of their seven sons moved to London so Deans could further his painting studies. They returned to New Zealand in 1950, settling on a Peel Forest farm. Deans was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for his services to the arts in 1995 and twice won the Kelleher Art Award. Deans was an accomplished landscape painter whose work includes images from his time as a prisoner of war, portraits and water colours of Canterbury high country as well time in the Antartic.
Austen Deans is one of the most prolific of the artists listed in our database, with the number of works offered for sale by auction since 1986 of 441, of which 345 (78%) were sold. The highest price recorded for the artist is $22,031 for Barley at Peel Forest sold by Watson's Auctioneers in October 2011. This year 5 works have been offered for sale. Works by Austen Deans are held by the Christchurch Art Gallery and Museum Of New Zealand.
Austen A. Deans is listed in the following standard biographical references:
- McGahey, Kate. The Concise Dictionary of New Zealand Artists Painters Printmakers Sculptors, Gilt Edge Publishing, Wellington, New Zealand, 2000. Page 64
- The Find New Zealand Artists web site: a database of artist names that directs researchers to the rich resources found in New Zealand's libraries, art society exhibition histories and published sources.
The Australian Art Sales Digest is a database of over 610,000 works by more than 12,000 artists who are listed as having either lived or worked in Australia or New Zealand, and an additional 36,000 foreign and other artists, offered for sale by auction in Australia and New Zealand from the early 1970s to the present day.
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