Reid Robert oil painting on wood board, acrylic paintings

Robert Reid
American Impressionist artist
born 1862 - died 1929
Student of: Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger (1824-1888), Jules Joseph Lefebvre (1836-1911)

REID, ROBERT (1842-1904), merchant and politician, was born on 18 October 1842 at Leven, Fifeshire, Scotland, second son of Robert Reid, bookseller, and his wife Catherine, née Lambert.

The family migrated to Victoria, arriving in April 1855 on the Ralph Waller, after barely surviving collision with an iceberg. When his father died weeks later, Robert, not yet 13, became the support of his mother and five sisters. Robert Reid was first a shop clerk in Collins Street, Melbourne, then at Ballarat, but the news of his having to work on the Sabbath outraged his mother's 'strong Scottish Christian opinions', and Robert Reid was peremptorily recalled. Robert Reid walked back to Melbourne to keep his £5 pay intact.
For seventeen years Robert Reid worked in the wholesale warehouse of William Watson & Sons, Swanston Street, before setting up as a wholesale drapery importer in Flinders Lane in January 1874, with partners Edward Warne and John Adair. Two years later the firm became Warne & Reid. Handsome new premises were built in 1881 for the staff of 90. Next year a factory with 250 employees, to manufacture men's clothing, was opened in Collingwood and a large Sydney branch was established. In 1887 after the retirement of Warne with a rich personal estate, the firm became Robert Reid & Co. By 1890 it was one of the largest Australian importing businesses and had additional branches in Adelaide and Brisbane. From its London and Glasgow branches buyers combed Europe for softgoods, doubtless guided by their proprietor's motto, 'Do your best every day and never miss a chance'. In 1898 Reid's (general warehousemen, agents, manufacturers and wharfingers, specializing in wholesale softgoods) became a limited liability company with a capital of £500,000 and its head office in a five-storey London building.- Reid Robert oil painting on wood board, acrylic paintings- Reid Robert on canvas oil painting on wood board– on wood board oil paintings on canvas, Reid Robert Bio by America acrylic paintings oil of America acrylic painting Reid Robert.
As 'one of the foremost of Australian commercial magnates', Reid was president of the first Congress of the Chambers of Commerce in Australasia during Victoria's centennial exhibition. Robert Reid represented the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce at the Indian and Colonial Exhibition (1886) in London and was a commissioner at the Paris Exhibition (1889) when Robert Reid received the cross of the Légion d'honneur. Robert Reid was president of the Melbourne chamber in 1888-90 and 1899-1902. Short, alert, rugged, well-travelled and well-informed, Reid rode or drove daily to the city from his family home, Belmont, at Balwyn. During the boom Robert Reid was a public champion of business rectitude, criticizing the 'smart' promoters of 'wicked schemes' which 'endangered the whole character of this colony' in 1889, and condemning banks and other institutions for abandoning 'the old-fashioned lines of the British merchant'.

The titles of oil painting old master Robert Reid