Alister Austen Deans was born in Riccarton House, Christchurch in 1915. Deans grew up near Darfield. From 1934 to 1938 he attended the Canterbury College School of Art where he came under the influence of Archibald Nicoll, Cecil Kelly, Evelyn Page and Colin and Rata Lovell-Smith. In 1939, as part of the First Echelon in the New Zealand Infantry he left for Egypt. While at war he continued to paint, sending finished pieces back to New Zealand. He was captured in Crete and spent the rest of World War II in prisoner-of-war camps in various locations. At the end of the war he returned to New Zealand. With money from a War Rehabilitation Bursary, he went to England with his wife, Elizabeth Hutton, and attended the Sir John Cass Colle...