Dusty Rhodes

James Francis "Dusty" Rhodes (8 May 1891 – 3 May 1979) was a hairdresser and prolific amateur artist who lived in Greymouth, New Zealand. Early life and family James Rhodes was born and raised in Christchurch on 8 May 1891, and went to school at Christ's College before attending the Canterbury College School of Art. He moved to Wellington briefly before returning to Christchurch to work as a hairdresser. In November 1915, he was drafted into the army Ambulance Corps and sent to the Western Front in 1917. He returned badly wounded and suffering from the after-effects of mustard gas. After the war, Rhodes opened a barbershop in Manchester Street, Christchurch and on 22 August 1922 married Edith Wilton at St Andrew's Church, Christchurch. Together they had four children – Faye, Ngaio, Betty, and Jim – before moving in 1929 to the West Coast. Rhodes set up a barbershop on Mawhera Quay, Greymouth, near the Railway Hotel. The family home was in Tasman Street, but later Dusty and Edith moved to Firth Street in Cobden. Rhodes was always known as "Dusty", a pun on his family name and a likely reference to the unsealed West Coast roads of the time. Artistic career Rhodes' son Jim recalls that all his father's spare time was spent painting. An easel in the living room always contained a work in progress, and the house "had a distinct smell of paint, turpentine, and tobacco smoke." (Rhodes habitually smoked a curved pipe while painting, and usually wore a bow tie.)