Reidar Aulie was a visual artist and illustrator born in 1935 in Kristiania, the son of Nils Baltazar Aulie and Martha Valstad. He grew up in a middle-class home in Oslo. Reider Aulie was the younger brother of Andreas Aulie, a lawyer who was later the Norwegian Attorney General from 1946 until 1967.

     Aulie studied at the Norwegian Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo under Christian Krohg from 1923–1924, and later under Axel Revold from 1925–1927. In 1927 he traveled to Paris with fellow student Bjarne Ness, who died at 25 of tuberculosis just before Christmas that year. His death made a strong impression on the younger Aulie who had shared lodgings with Ness. Aulie debuted at the Autumn Exhibition (Høstutstillingen) in 1927. In the 1930s Aulie illustrated books by such authors as Ingeborg Refling Hagen and Martin Andersen Nexø.

     As a young progressive and intellectual artist, Aulie sided with the labor movement within the national political struggle. Aulie's paintings are full of symbolism and there is often room for several interpretations. Aulie was always concerned with the common man and portrayed him with great enthusiasm. In the 1930s he became an artist for the Socialist movement. He participated in the Anti-War Conference in Amsterdam in 1932 and was chairman of the Anti-War Committee in Oslo and the surrounding area. In 1933 Aulie married the Architect Kari Gunvor Katarina Randem (1908–1994) and in 1936 they built a house and studio on Maridalsveien Street in Oslo, where they lived the rest of their lives.

     He became best known for the art produced during the Second World War. Aulie had a significant production between 1940 and 1945, during periods spent hiding on a small farm owned by his in-laws in Eidsberg. Aulie's main production year was 1943 when he painted  important war pictures of subjects that would not be tolerated by German censorship. Among them "9 April 1940" (the date when Norway was invaded by the Nazis) and "Morgenapell på Grini," which led to him being arrested in 1945 and put temporarily in the Grini detention camp.

     In 1950 he painted "Arbeiderbevegelsens historie", a fresco of the labor movement's history that resides in Oslo City Hall. His last two decades were marked by  teaching duties at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts, first as professor from 1958, and later as Rector from 1968–1971.

     Aulie exhibited with the artist group "Color and Shape" (Färg och Form) in Stockholm, at the National Gallery in Oslo, the Gothenburg Art Museum, and at the art associations in Stavanger, Bergens, and Copenhagen.

     He received awards in his lifetime including the Draft awarded in the decorating competition for Oslo City Hall in 1938. He was named a member of the Royal Swedish Academy, and awarded the Prince Eugen Medal, both in 1964. He was also an honorary member of the Artists' Guild in Finland, and granted the King's Medal of Merit in gold and the War Medal.

     The artist is represented in these public institutions:

• National Museum of Art in Oslo

• Oslo Municipality Art Collection

• Stavanger Art Museum

• KODE Collection at the Art Museum of Bergen

• SKMU - Sørlandets Kunstmuseum

• Kalmar konstmuseum

• Länsmuseet Gävleborg

• Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm

• The Frick Art Reference Library of The Frick Collection

• Gothenburg Art Museum

• Griegsamlingen (The Grieg Collection)