James Stuart MacDonald

James Stuart MacDonald was an Australian artist, art critic and Director of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales from 1929 to 1937.

Early life

MacDonald was born on 28 March 1878 in Carlton, Melbourne, the son of solicitor Hector MacDonald and his American wife Anna Louisa, née Flett. He attended Kew High School and Hawthorn Grammar School, but proved unsuccessful in his studies. As a child, MacDonald met many painters through family connections and, in the mid-1890s, studied at the National Gallery of Victoria's school.
MacDonald left Australia for London in 1898 to attend the Westminster School of Art. He then spent five years in Paris where he attended the Académie Julian and the Académie Colarossi. He exhibited his works in Paris at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Old Salon. He returned to Melbourne and married American arts student, Maud Keller, on 4 August 1904. They moved to New York where he taught art at a high school until 1910. Back in Australia he painted some portraits and landscapes, and turned to drawing in charcoal and to lithographic portraits.
On 9 September 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, MacDonald enlisted in the 5th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force. With the rank of private, he served at Gallipoli where, on 26 April 1915, he was wounded in the abdomen and was classified unfit for active service. He served as a pay sergeant in England in 1916 and 1917. In 1918, he worked as a camouflage artist with the 5th Division in France and was medically discharged from the army in April 1919.
Returning to Australia, MacDonald took up art study, publishing works on Frederick McCubbin, Penleigh Boyd, David Davies and George Lambert. Having given up painting, from 1923 he was art critic for The Melbourne Herald.