Reginald Sturgess

Reginald Ward Sturgess (18 June 1892 – 2 July 1932) was an Australian artist.

Sturgess was born in 1892 in the Melbourne suburb of Newport, Victoria, the son of cabinet maker Edward Sturgess and his wife Emma (née Ward), migrants from Bath, England. Sturgess had three brothers and a sister, but one brother died in England before the family migrated, and the other brother died soon after the family's arrival in Australia. Sturgess was the youngest child, and the only one born in Australia. The family was interested in the arts, particularly Sturgess' father, but also his elder sister Florence, who went on to become a successful pianist. Edward Sturgess was a good craftsman, having on one occasion decorated a carriage for Queen Victoria, but the economic slump of the 1890s following the land boom in Victoria led to a lack of business, and he abandoned cabinet making for a seed business in 1893. However, he had more success from a joint exhibition with Granville Dunstan at the Athenaeum, also in September 1921, and in July 1922 he held his first solo exhibition, at the Athenaeum. probably brought on by the motorcycle accident, although no autopsy was performed, and Sturgess' doctors were never able to completely explain his ill-health in the years preceding his death. Sturgess was buried in the Williamstown Cemetery, and was survived by Meta and Elizabeth.