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.

History

Dowie was born in the Adelaide suburb of

Prospect Prospect may refer to: General * Prospect (marketing), a marketing term describing a potential customer * Prospect (sports), any player whose rights are owned by a professional team, but who has yet to play a game for the team * Prospect (mining ...

, a son of Charles Stuart Dowie (c. 1874–1937) and his wife Gertrude Phillis Dowie, née Davey (1881–1956), who married in 1910. His siblings were David Lincoln Dowie (1911–1991), Jean Phillis Dowie (1913–2010), and Donald Alexander "Don" Dowie (1917–2016). 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 The University of South Australia (UniSA) is a public research university in the Australian state of South Australia. It is a founding member of the Australian Technology Network of universities, and is the largest university in South Australi ...

; teachers included Ivor Hele and Marie Tuck.John Stuart Dowie
,

Carrick Hill Carrick Hill is a publicly accessible historic property at the foot of the Adelaide Hills, in the suburb of Springfield, in South Australia. It was the Adelaide home of Sir Edward "Bill" Hayward and his wife Ursula (née Barr-Smith), and con ...

(

Government of South Australia The Government of South Australia, also referred to as the South Australian Government, SA Government or more formally, His Majesty’s Government, is the Australian state democratic administrative authority of South Australia. It is modelled o ...

). He enlisted with the

2nd AIF The Second Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF, or Second AIF) was the name given to the volunteer expeditionary force of the Australian Army in the Second World War. It was formed following the declaration of war on Nazi Germany, with an initial ...

in 1940, serving in the 2/43rd Battalion and fought in the siege of Tobruk — the "

Rats of Tobruk The Rats of Tobruk were soldiers of the Australian-led Allied garrison that held the Libyan port of Tobruk against the Afrika Corps, during the Siege of Tobruk in World War II. The siege started on 11 April 1941 and was relieved on 10 December. ...

". He next worked in the Military History Unit of the Second AIF as an assistant to Australia's first official war sculptor,

Lyndon Dadswell Lyndon Raymond Dadswell (18 January 1908 – 7 November 1986) was an Australian artist, remembered as the country's first official war sculptor. History Dadswell was born in Stanmore, Sydney, the son of Arthur Raymond Dadswell and his wife Maysel C ...

. 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 Dorothea Foster Black (23 December 1891 – 13 September 1951) was an Australian painter and printmaker of the modernism, Modernist school, known for being a pioneer of Modernism in Australia. In 1951, at the age of sixty, Black was killed in a ...

's "Group 9", which included

Geoffrey Shedley Geoffrey Richard Shedley (10 May 1914 – 19 August 1981) was a South Australian architect and sculptor. History Shedley was born in Glenelg, South Australia, the only son of Richard Gustav (later Richard Graham) "Gus" Schedlich (1886–1931) and ...

and Mary Shedley, Lisette Kohlhagen, Mary Harris, Ernst Milston, Marjorie Gwynne, and Ruby Henty.. 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. 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 Fitzroy or FitzRoy may refer to: People As a given name *Several members of the Somerset family (Dukes of Beaufort) have this as a middle-name: **FitzRoy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan (1788–1855) ** Henry Charles FitzRoy Somerset, 8th Duke of Beau ...

, Melbourne, to be cast in bronze, by the lost-wax process, in time for the official opening of New Parliament House in March 1988.

Recognition

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. He was nominated for Senior Australian of the Year in 2005,

Personal

After the death of his mother Dowie purchased the family home at 28 Gurney Road, Dulwich. Dowie never married. The painter Penny Dowie (1948–) is a niece. Dowie died on 19 March 2008, aged 93, in an Adelaide nursing home, after having suffered a

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

the week before,Sculptor John Dowie dies
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 19 March 2008. and was buried in a country churchyard near

Littlehampton, South Australia Littlehampton is a village in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia, located on the Old Princes Highway. It is approximately 35 minutes from the Adelaide CBD via the South Eastern Freeway. At the time of the 2016 Australian census, Littlehampt ...

Bibliography

''John Dowie: A Life in the Round'', autobiography ed. Tracey Lock-Weir, Wakefield Press Adelaide

Gallery

File:Ross and Keith Smith memorial (Dowie).jpg, Ross and Keith Smith memorial File:Father and Son (Dowie) (2).jpg, ''Father and Son'', tribute to Sir John Downer File:J150W-statue-Oliphant.jpg, Mark Oliphant File:OliphantHead.jpg, Oliphant File:J150W-statue-Florey-1.jpg,

Howard Florey Howard Walter Florey, Baron Florey (24 September 189821 February 1968) was an Australian pharmacologist and pathologist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Sir Ernst Chain and Sir Alexander Fleming for his role in ...

File:OIC adelaide gh lord florey statue.jpg, Florey File:John Dowie bust of Louis Laybourne Smith.jpg, Louis Laybourne Smith File:J150W-statue-Napier.jpg, Mellis Napier File:OIC adelaide gh mellis napier statue.jpg, Napier File:Kangaroo and Platypus Hemel Hempstead.jpg, Kangaroo and Platypus, The Water Gardens, Hemel Hempstead, UK File:Robert Richard Torrens bust.jpg, Robert Torrens File:Statue of Alice - Rymill Park - Adelaide.jpg, Alice (in Wonderland) File:Alice characters (Dowie).jpg, Characters at base of Alice statue File:Mawson (Dowie).jpg, Douglas Mawson File:Three Rivers.jpg, Three Rivers Fountain in Victoria Square, Adelaide File:Victoriasquarefountain.jpg, Three Rivers fountain File:Adelaide VictoriaSq Fountain Night2.JPG, Three Rivers fountain File:J150W-statue-Dowie.jpg, Dowie by John Woffinden, 2006 File:Dowie (Woffinden).jpg, Dowie by Woffinden File:J150W-statue-Dowie-text.jpg, Plaque for Woffinden head File:Heysen at 89 (Dowie).jpg, Hans Heysen aged 89 File:John_Dowie_grave_marker.JPG, Original grave marker File:John Dowie grave marker 2.jpg, Later headstone

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dowie, John 1915 births 2008 deaths Members of the Order of Australia Artists from Adelaide Artists from South Australia 20th-century Australian sculptors 20th-century Australian painters 20th-century Australian male artists Australian male painters Australian Army personnel of World War II People educated at Adelaide High School Military personnel from South Australia