John Dowie (artist)

{{other people||John Dowie (disambiguation){{!}}John Dowie}}

{{Infobox person

| name = John Dowie

| honorific-suffix = {{post-nominals|country=AUS|size=100%|AM}}

| image =

| alt =

| caption =

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth date |df=yes|1915|1|15}}

| birth_place = Prospect, South Australia

| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2008|3|19|1915|1|15}}

| death_place = Adelaide, South Australia

| nationality = Australian

| other_names =

| occupation = Painter and sculptor

| known_for = Painting and sculpting

}}

File:Adelaide VictoriaSq Fountain Night2.JPG.]]

John Stuart Dowie {{post-nominals|country=AUS|size=85%|AM}} (15 January 1915 – 19 March 2008) was an Australian painter, sculptor and teacher. His work includes over 50 public sculpture commissions, including the "Three Rivers" fountain in Victoria Square, "Alice" in Rymill Park, the "Victor Richardson Gates" at Adelaide Oval and the "Sir Ross & Sir Keith Smith Memorial" at Adelaide Airport.

History

Dowie was born in the Adelaide suburb of Prospect, a son of Charles Stuart Dowie (c. 1874–1937){{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article74359006 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=The Advertiser (Adelaide) |location=South Australia |date=18 November 1937 |access-date=29 October 2023 |page=12 |via=National Library of Australia}} and his wife Gertrude Phillis Dowie, née Davey (1881–1956), who married in 1910.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58166646 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=The Register (Adelaide) |volume=LXXV |issue=20,004 |location=South Australia |date=22 December 1910 |access-date=29 October 2023 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}} His siblings were David Lincoln Dowie (1911–1991), Jean Phillis Dowie (1913–2010), and Donald Alexander "Don" Dowie (1917–2016).{{cite web|url=https://www.anareclub.org/donald-dowie/|title=Donald Dowie |author=Richard Willing |website=ANARE Club Bulletin |access-date=31 October 2023}}{{cite web|url=https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/511949 |title=Virtual War Memorial: DOWIE, Donald Alexander |publisher=Virtual War Memorial Limited |access-date=9 November 2023}} The family moved to the leafy suburb of Dulwich in 1917.

He attended Rose Park primary school and Adelaide High School before studying architecture at the University of Adelaide and painting at the South Australian School of Art; teachers included Ivor Hele and Marie Tuck.[http://carrickhill.sa.gov.au/australian_dowie.html John Stuart Dowie] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080721010654/http://carrickhill.sa.gov.au/australian_dowie.html |date=21 July 2008 }}, Carrick Hill (Government of South Australia). Between 1936 and 1940 he studied architecture at the University of Adelaide, immersed in the avant-garde movement then prevalent: he designed the cover for Phoenix, which gave rise to Angry Penguins. He contributed eight linocuts to Phoenix in 1935 and 1936.{{cite work|url=https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/129739/1/A%20Genius%20About%20the%20Place.pdf |title="A Genius About the Place": The Phoenix Magazine and Australian modernism |chapter=Phoenix 1935 |author=Cheryl Hoskin}}

He enlisted with the 2nd AIF in 1940, serving in the 2/43rd Battalion and fought in the siege of Tobruk — the "Rats of Tobruk".[https://web.archive.org/web/20121106014530/http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/19/2194381.htm?site=adelaide Dowie 'truly great South Australian'], Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 19 March 2008. He next worked in the Military History Unit of the Second AIF as an assistant to Australia's first official war sculptor, Lyndon Dadswell. In 1943 he returned to his old Battalion, serving at Finschhafen, New Guinea.

After studying art in London and Florence, Dowie returned to Australia and became a member of the Royal South Australian Society of Arts and Dorrit Black's "Group 9", which included Geoffrey Shedley and Mary Shedley, Lisette Kohlhagen, Mary Harris, Ernst Milston, Marjorie Gwynne, and Ruby Henty.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article74621343 |title=Novel Group 9 Exhibition. |newspaper=The Advertiser |location=Adelaide |date=19 November 1945 |access-date=27 February 2015 |page=9 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}

One of his earliest commissions was from Adelaide architect D. P. Michelmore for the Ross and Keith Smith memorial, first installed outside the Vickers-Vimy hangar at the domestic terminal, West Beach Airport (since renamed Adelaide Airport). A massive undertaking, it consists of four oversize standing figures in high relief, carved in Gosford sandstone, overall size {{convert |3.36 x 2.74 |m}}, and was unveiled on 27 April 1958.{{cite book|title=John Dowie: A Life in the Round |author=John Dowie |editor=Tracey Lock-Weir |chapter=Ross — a Reminiscence |publisher=Wakefield Press, Adelaide |isbn=1862545448}} It now stands outside the Vickers-Vimy Memorial at the east end of the new Terminal.

Since that time he made many dozens of statues, mostly in bronze, of prominent figures, none more so perhaps than the bust of Elizabeth II, who sat for him on five occasions in 1987 in the Yellow Drawing-room at Buckingham Palace. Dowie modelled directly in clay, from which he made plaster moulds (at the Palace) which were sent to the Meridian Sculpture Foundry,{{efn|Not to be confused with the foundry of the same name in Peckham Rye, London, the Fitzroy workshops were established in 1973 by Peter Morley, who trained in England.}} Fitzroy, Melbourne, to be cast in bronze, by the lost-wax process, in time for the official opening of New Parliament House in March 1988.{{cite book|title=John Dowie: A Life in the Round |author=John Dowie |editor=Tracey Lock-Weir |chapter=The Queen is my Subject |publisher=Wakefield Press, Adelaide |isbn=1862545448}}

Recognition

Dowie was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1981 in recognition of his service to the arts as a sculptor and painter.[https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/869686 Dowie, John Stuart], It's an Honour (Australian Government).

He was nominated for Senior Australian of the Year in 2005,[http://www.australianoftheyear.gov.au/pages/bio.asp?pID=166 John Dowie AM] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060918120554/http://www.australianoftheyear.gov.au/pages/bio.asp?pID=166 |date=18 September 2006 }}, Australian of the Year

Personal

After the death of his mother Dowie purchased the family home at 28 Gurney Road, Dulwich. Dowie never married. The painter Helen Alexandra "Penny" Dowie (born 3 August 1948) is a niece,{{Cite book|url=http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/335823|title = Biographical cuttings on Penny Dowie, artist, containing one or more cuttings from newspapers or journals}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.daao.org.au/main/read/2284|title=Penny Dowie|publisher=Design and Art Australia Online}} daughter of Donald Alexander "Don" and Margaret "Peg" Dowie, née Burden,{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43777610 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=The Advertiser (Adelaide) |volume=91 |issue=28027 |location=South Australia |date=5 August 1948 |access-date=9 November 2023 |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia}}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47573755 |title=About People |newspaper=The Advertiser (Adelaide) |volume=96 |issue=29,748 |location=South Australia |date=16 February 1954 |access-date=9 November 2023 |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Dowie died on 19 March 2008, aged 93, in an Adelaide nursing home, after suffering a stroke the week before,[https://archive.today/20120718094343/http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/19/2194061.htm Sculptor John Dowie dies], Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 19 March 2008. and was buried in a country churchyard near Littlehampton, South Australia.

Works

Partial list of public works by John Dowie

class="wikitable sortable" ! Image	Name	Year	Location	Notes
	Soldier	1955	Roseworthy College chapel
	Ross and Keith Smith	1958	Adelaide Airport	sandstone bas relief
	Platypus fountain	1960	Raleigh Walk, Elizabeth	in pool designed by Geoff Shedley
	Piccaninny drinking fountain	1960	Rymill Park, Adelaide
	Hans Heysen	1961	Hahndorf Academy	duplicate at "The Cedars"
	Alice	1961	Rymill Park, Adelaide
	Pan fountain	1962	Veale Gardens, Adelaide
	Kangaroo and Platypus	1963	Hemel Hempstead, UK	a gift from the town of Elizabeth, SA
	Stilt Boy	1963	Adelaide High School
	Father and Son	1964	Garema Place, Canberra
	Howard Florey	1966	North Terrace, Adelaide
	Vic Richardson gates	1967	Adelaide Oval
	Three Rivers fountain	1968	Victoria Square, Adelaide
	Charles Bean	1969	Australian War Memorial, Canberra
	Mellis Napier	1970	North Terrace, Adelaide
	Edward Morgan	1970	Art Gallery of South Australia
	Icarus	1971	Melbourne Airport, Melbourne
	Tjilbruke	1972	Kingston Park, South Australia	assemblage of gneiss boulders
	The Art of Learning	1972	University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes	85 relief mullions from four designs
	Keith Russack memorial	1972	Adelaide High School
	Lachlan Macquarie	1973	FAI Insurance building, Macquarie Street, Sydney
	Thomas Playford	1973	Parliament House, Adelaide
	Memorial (to whom?)	1974	St Columba's Church, Hawthorn, Adelaide	bronze aumbry and plaque
	George the orangutan	1976	Adelaide Zoo
	The Slide	1977	Rundle Mall, Adelaide
	Mark Oliphant	1978	North Terrace, Adelaide
	Child with hula hoop	1978	Nurses memorial gardens
	Zelman Cowen	1979	University of Queensland, Brisbane
	Hamish Bruce memorial gate	1980s	St Peter's College, Adelaide	depicts discus, rowing, football
	Mildred Mocatta fountain	1980s	Hackney, Adelaide
	2/43 Battalion memorial cairn	1980	Woodside army camp
	John Hackett	1980	Geelong Grammar School
	Thomas & Co. fountain	1981	Port Adelaide
	Douglas Mawson	1982	North Terrace, Adelaide	duplicate at Mawson Base, Antarctica
	Elizabeth II	1984	Queen's Place, Brisbane
	Robert Richard Torrens	1985	South Australian Parliament Research Library	duplicate at Scotch College
	John Bishop	1986	Adelaide Festival Centre
	Robert Helpmann	1986	Adelaide Festival Centre
	Matthew Flinders	1986	Flinders University	unveiled by the Duke of Edinburgh
	W. A. N. Wells	1987	Lands Titles Office, Adelaide
	Elizabeth II	1987	Parliament House, Canberra	duplicate at Windsor Castle, London
	AIF Malaya memorial	1988	Australian War Memorial, Canberra
	John Bray	1990	State Library of SA
	Alexander Cameron	1997	Penola, South Australia
	Skater	1997	Burnside City Council
	John Rymill	1998	Coonawarra, SA	duplicate at Rymill winery
	John Riddoch	1998	Rymill winery, Coonawarra