- Australian artist Robert Finlayson born in Annandale (Sydney) in 1940 and grew up in the Sutherland (southern Sydney) area, attending school at Cronulla
- NSW Signwriting Apprentice of the Year 1961
- Taught by eminent Meldrum school artist Grame Inson
- Had paintings hung in the Archibald Prize exhibitions 1965 and 1966 and Sulman Prize exhibition 1965 (leading national prizes for portraiture and genre painting respectively)
- One-man shows in Sydney in the late 1960s
- Also designed magazine and book covers
- Became disillusioned with the art establishment and from the 1970s ceased to exhibit publicly
- Continued to paint with a "day job" as a signwriter; sold paintings privately
- In 1989 retired from signwriting to paint fulltime
- Major retrospective exhibition "A Mirror for Poets" 1994, TAP Gallery, Darlinghurst
- Died at Liverpool (Sydney), 2001
- Posthumous non-selling exhibition "Sub Specie Aeternitatus", University of Western Sydney 2002
- Belief in the value of beauty in people's lives - its capacity to transcend and enlighten
- Over 500 surviving works including paintings, collages and drawings
- Delighted in trying new and unusual combinations and unexpected juxtapositions of colours, tones and forms/objects
- Subjects and their treatment reflect his interest in cosmology, philosophy, science, music, anthropology/evolution, religion and history
- Favourite artists - a long list but prominent would be Velasquez, Cezanne and Turner
- Two daughters and three grandchildren
