Rex Battarbee

Unable to resume farmwork, in 1921–23 Battarbee studied commercial art in Melbourne, but developed a preference for the outdoor life of a landscape painter.

In 1928, Battarbee and fellow commercial artist John Gardner bought a T-model Ford which had been converted to a caravan and set out on a fifteen-month trip, painting in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

On an expedition to South and Central Australia in 1932, they showed their paintings at the Hermannsburg Lutheran mission, on the Finke River, west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

Returning to the area in 1934 to paint the Macdonnell and James ranges, Battarbee and Gardner again displayed their work at Hermannsburg—this time for the benefit of the Arrernte people.

With the permission of the superintendent Pastor Friedrich Albrecht, Battarbee employed Namatjira as camel-boy[1] during excursions, each of one month, to Palm Valley and the Macdonnell Ranges.

In 1964–66 Bernice ran the Battarbee Centralian Arts gallery, Adelaide, while her husband was briefly a patient in the Repatriation General Hospital, Daw Park.

Survived by his son and daughter, he died on 2 September 1973 in the Old Timers' Home, Alice Springs, and was buried with Methodist forms in the town's cemetery.