year arranged a solo exhibition for him at the Fine Art Society Gallery, Melbourne. Life in Alice Springs About 1940, Battarbee moved permanently to Central Australia. He conducted classes for an expanding group of Aboriginal artists and arranged further exhibitions of Namatjira's paintings in the southern capitals. As the Hermannsburg school of watercolourists developed, Battarbee became its promoter and helped to regulate the supply and distribution of its works to art markets. He was a member (from 1943) and chairman (1951–1956) of the Aranda Arts Council and a member of the two advisory committees also formed to protect the artists' interests. During World War II the authorities considered closing Hermannsburg on the ground that its German staff constituted a security risk. A compromise was reached, however, and in 1942 Battarbee was appointed a protector of Aborigines and Commonwealth government officer overseeing the mission. There, on 7 October 1950, he married with Lutheran forms 30-year-old Ada Bernice Loone, a Baptist lay missionary. Pastor Albrecht conducted the service. The Battarbees lived at Alice Springs and opened an Aboriginal art gallery, Tmara-mara, in their home. Rex continued to paint and exhibit. 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. Returning to Alice Springs, Battarbee was appointed O.B.E. in 1971 for his services to art and Aborigines. He had been attracted to Central Australia by the variety and luminosity of colours to be found in the region. Although he believed that he had a sound sense of colour and that his best paintings would be remembered, he also expressed the view that his discovery of Namatjira would outlive the memory of his own art. Battarbee was a fellow (1937) of the Royal South Australian Society of Arts. he wrote Modern Australian Aboriginal Art (Sydney, 1951) and — with his wife — Modern Aboriginal Paintings (Adelaide, 1971). 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. His work is represented in the Art Gallery of South Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria. Battarbee Street in the Canberra suburb of Conder is named in his honour. Published works Further reading Sources 1893 births 1973 deaths Australian landscape painters People from Warrnambool Australian military personnel of World War I 20th-century