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The Artists

Robert Emerson Curtis (1898-1996)

Robert Emerson Curtis was born in Croydon, England, and migrated with his family to Australia in 1914. While running the family orchard, he developed his early interest in art by enrolling in a correspondence course with the Press Art School in London. During the early 1920s he worked in Brisbane.

In 1922 he went to America, where he specialised in architectural and industrial commissions. While there, he studied at the Art Institute of San Francisco and the Art Institute of Chicago and returned to Australia in 1928 with his wife, Ruth, and their child. From 1941 to 1943 he worked with Douglas Annand and William Dobell as a camouflage officer with the RAAF in New Guinea. The following two years were spent as an official war artist, recording Australia's industrial wartime production and VE Day in Canberra.

Curtis painted portraits and landscapes but he is best known for his architectural and industrial work. This included commissions to document the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. His drawings of both major landmarks were later published as books.

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