Canterbury artist and mountaineer Austen Deans has died, aged 96.
Best known for his traditional landscape paintings depicting his beloved high country, Mr Deans was also a portraitist and, briefly, an official war artist.
Alister Edward Austen Deans was born in 1915, and grew up on the family farm at Morven, part of the Homebush estate established by the Deans family in 1850.
Mr Deans won the Kelliher art prize twice in the 1960s and took second prize in 1969 and 1970.
He traveled to the Antarctic in 1981 and exhibited his paintings, photographs and sketches of the continent.
He continued to be active into his 90s, still living in his beloved South Canterbury landscape.
Mr Deans' wife had died after 57 years of marriage and in 2009, at the age of 93, he married again.
He is survived by his wife Margaret and seven sons.
