Robert Wallace Ellis ONZM (Northampton, England, 2 April 1929 – Auckland, New Zealand, 23 November 2021) was a British-born New Zealand painter and educator whose work explored themes of urbanisation, colonisation, and cultural identity. Before emigrating to New Zealand, Ellis served in the Royal Air Force Bomber Command as an aerial photographer (1947–1949), an experience that shaped his visual vocabulary and compositional approach.

Educated at the Northampton School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London (1949–1953), Ellis moved to Auckland in 1957 to take up a teaching position at the Elam School of Fine Arts, where he later became Professor Emeritus. His early paintings, including the Motorway Series (1963–1974), depicted
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