Howard Arkley (1951–1999) lived and worked in Melbourne. He studied at Prahran College of Advanced Education (1969–1972), where he began working with the airbrush technique that would define his later paintings. His signature houses and domestic interiors were always produced in dialogue with his preoccupation with abstraction, patterning and the slide between two and three dimensions, questioning utopian aspirations such as suburban home ownership and the functional ideals of modernist architecture. He is widely regarded as the foremost painter of Australian suburbia.

Arkley represented Australia at the 1999 Venice Biennale, and undertook residencies in Paris and New York. Major exhibitions include HA: Howard Arkley, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne (1991); Federation, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2000); Fieldwork: Australian Art 1968–2002, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2002); and Howard Arkley: The Retrospective, The Ian Potter Centre, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2006). Arkley's portrait of Nick Cave was one of the National Portrait Gallery's first commissions and remains one of the Gallery's signature images. His work is held in public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Howard Arkley appears courtesy of the Estate of Howard Arkley and KALLI ROLFE CONTEMPORARY ART.