John Dowie's sculpture Three Rivers in Victoria Square, Adelaide.

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, 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]

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".^[6] He next worked in the Military History Unit of the Second AIF as an assistant to Australia's first official war sculptor, Lyndon Dadswell.^[5] 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.^[7]

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 3.36 by 2.74 metres (11.0 ft × 9.0 ft), and was unveiled on 27 April 1958.^[8] 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,^{[lower-alpha 1]} 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.^[9]

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.^[10] He was nominated for Senior Australian of the Year in 2005,^[11]

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,^[12][13] daughter of Donald Alexander "Don" and Margaret "Peg" Dowie, née Burden,^[14][15]

Dowie died on 19 March 2008, aged 93, in an Adelaide nursing home, after suffering a stroke the week before,^[16] and was buried in a country churchyard near Littlehampton, South Australia.

Works

Partial list of public works by John Dowie

Bibliography

John Dowie: A Life in the Round, autobiography ed. Tracey Lock-Weir, Wakefield Press Adelaide ISBN 1-86254-550-2

Gallery

• 
  Ross and Keith Smith memorial
• 
  Father and Son, tribute to Sir John Downer
• 
  Mark Oliphant
• 
  Oliphant
• 
  Howard Florey
• 
  Florey
• 
  Louis Laybourne Smith
• 
  Mellis Napier
• 
  Napier
• 
  Kangaroo and Platypus, The Water Gardens, Hemel Hempstead, UK
• 
  Robert Torrens
• 
  Alice (in Wonderland)
• 
  Characters at base of Alice statue
• 
  Douglas Mawson
• 
  Three Rivers Fountain in Victoria Square, Adelaide
• 
  Three Rivers fountain
• 
  Three Rivers fountain
• 
  Dowie by John Woffinden, 2006
• 
  Dowie by Woffinden
• 
  Plaque for Woffinden head
• 
  Hans Heysen aged 89
• 
  Original grave marker
• 
  Later headstone

Notes

References