John Douglas Perrett (1859 - 1937) was a prolific painter of landscapes in both oil and pastel. Born in Scotland he studied at the Glasgow School of Art. Perrett arrived in Dunedin c.1886. In 1894, with fellow painters G P Nerli and L W Wilson, he opened Otago Art Academy, a private art school. He moved north to Auckland in 1895 and continued exhibiting with the Otago Art Society and Auckland Society of Arts for another three decades. Perrett also exhibited at the NZ and South Seas Exhibition, Dunedin 1889-90, Auckland Industrial and Mining Exhibition 1898 and St Louis Exposition, 1904. Represented in many institutional galleries in New Zealand including Hocken Library.