| John Dowie | |
| Birth Date: | 1915 1, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Prospect, South Australia |
| Death Place: | Adelaide, South Australia |
| Nationality: | Australian |
| Occupation: | Painter and sculptor |
| Known For: | Painting and sculpting |
John Stuart Dowie 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.
Dowie was born in the Adelaide suburb of Prospect, a son of Charles Stuart Dowie (c. 1874–1937)[1] and his wife Gertrude Phillis Dowie, née Davey (1881–1956), who married in 1910.[2] His siblings were David Lincoln Dowie (1911–1991), Jean Phillis Dowie (1913–2010), and Donald Alexander "Don" Dowie (1917–2016).[3] [4] 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.[5] 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.[6]
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".[7] 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.[8]
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, and was unveiled on 27 April 1958.[9] 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, 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.[10]
Dowie was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1981 in recognition of his service to the arts as a sculptor and painter.[11] He was nominated for Senior Australian of the Year in 2005,[12]
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,[13] [14] daughter of Donald Alexander "Don" and Margaret "Peg" Dowie, née Burden,[15] [16]
Dowie died on 19 March 2008, aged 93, in an Adelaide nursing home, after suffering a stroke the week before,[17] and was buried in a country churchyard near Littlehampton, South Australia.
Partial list of public works by John Dowie
| Image | Name | Year | Location | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soldier | 1955 | Roseworthy College chapel | |||
| 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 | |||
| 1961 | 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 | ||||
| Father and Son | 1964 | Garema Place, Canberra | |||
| 1966 | |||||
| Vic Richardson gates | 1967 | ||||
| Three Rivers fountain | 1968 | ||||
| 1969 | Australian War Memorial, Canberra | ||||
| 1970 | North Terrace, Adelaide | ||||
| Edward Morgan | 1970 | ||||
| Icarus | 1971 | Tullamarine Airport, Melbourne | |||
| Tjilbruke | 1972 | 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 | ||||
| 1973 | FAI Insurance building, Macquarie Street, Sydney | ||||
| 1973 | |||||
| Memorial (to whom?) | 1974 | St Columba's Church, Hawthorn, Adelaide | bronze aumbry and plaque | ||
| George the orangutan | 1976 | ||||
| The Slide | 1977 | ||||
| 1978 | North Terrace, Adelaide | ||||
| Child with hula hoop | 1978 | Nurses memorial gardens | |||
| 1979 | University of Queensland, Brisbane | ||||
| Hamish Bruce memorial gate | 1980s | depicts discus, rowing, football | |||
| Mildred Mocatta fountain | 1980s | ||||
| 2/43 Battalion memorial cairn | 1980 | ||||
| John Hackett | 1980 | ||||
| Thomas & Co. fountain | 1981 | Port Adelaide | |||
| 1982 | North Terrace, Adelaide | duplicate at Mawson Base, Antarctica | |||
| 1984 | |||||
| 1985 | South Australian Parliament Research Library | duplicate at Scotch College | |||
| 1986 | |||||
| 1986 | Adelaide Festival Centre | ||||
| 1986 | unveiled by the Duke of Edinburgh | ||||
| 1987 | Lands Titles Office, Adelaide | ||||
| 1987 | duplicate at Windsor Castle, London | ||||
| AIF Malaya memorial | 1988 | Australian War Memorial, Canberra | |||
| 1990 | State Library of SA | ||||
| 1997 | Penola, SA | ||||
| Skater | 1997 | Burnside City Council | |||
| John Rymill | 1998 | Coonawarra, SA | duplicate at Rymill winery | ||
| John Riddoch | 1998 | Rymill winery, Coonawarra |
John Dowie: A Life in the Round, autobiography ed. Tracey Lock-Weir, Wakefield Press Adelaide