Tom Garrett

1879 - 1952

For brief biographical information, refer to this obituary from The Advertiser, 12 September 1952

"Tom Garrett was born in Hobart on December 20,1879 into a family of merchants and accountants, which had settled in Tasmaia in the 1930s. He was educated at Hutchins School and worked for a while thereafter in his father's bank. He then left for Melbourne where he is believed to have studied for the ministy. He wandered and later settled in Sydney where he obtained a job in the art deparment of Swain's shop.

He held his first exhibition in 1929 in Sydney at the age of fifty, giving up his job to paint full-time. According to Rubery Bennett, who held the exhibition, it was a "howling success'. Thereafter Tom Garrett exhibited regulalry in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and throughout the 1940s, holding his last exhibition in 1951. He died in 1952."

Extract from Tom Garrett, The Rogowski Collection, Danuta Ragowski 1976.