The MacDiarmid Arts Trust is a registered charity responsible for managing the creative interests of acclaimed expatriate painter Douglas MacDiarmid (1922 - 2020) to protect and preserve the integrity of his work. 

Douglas MacDiarmid holds a unique place in New Zealand’s creative core. Regarded as the one who got away, Douglas is a significant missing link in post-war New Zealand art culture. By choosing to pursue a global career rather than make a domestic living, he flew under the radar for much of his career.

Born in Taihape in 1922, he boarded at Huntley Preparatory School, Marton, and Timaru Boys’ High School. He graduated from Canterbury College, Christchurch with a Bachelor of Arts in English, literature and music after World War II.

Based in Paris from 1952 until his death on 26 August 2020, Douglas found his own way and outlived his contemporaries. MacDiarmid was a gifted, charmingly charismatic, highly articulate, erudite and witty individual. With his prodigiously versatile painting style in portraits, figures, landscapes, urbanscapes, representational and abstract art, he had wide success earning a living from his art in a very competitive market.

He continued to represent New Zealand on the world art scene well into his 90s. He returned to his homeland regularly over the decades and featured in many exhibitions in New Zealand.

Douglas described himself as an expressionist painter – one who expresses the visual rhythm of things. He worked in oils, watercolour, acrylic on various surfaces, and experimented with new textures and sculptural mediums. All of his work is imbued with his deep interest in the classical world, music, mythology, literature, and the origins of civilisation and language.

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