Painter/sculptor John Dowie, a Rat of Tobruk, chooses modernism in the postwar Adelaide battle with classicists
John Dowie's oil painting Self Portrait Tobruk (1942-43) and his Adelaide city sculptures including Three Rivers Fountain in Victoria Square and portrait busts of eminent South Australians along North Terrace, including father and son Nobel Prize winners William and Lawrence Bragg.
John Dowie’s sculptures – from the Victor Richardson Gates at Adelaide Oval, the Sir Ross & Sir Keith Smith Memorial at Adelaide Airport, Alice in Rymill Park, Three Rivers Fountain in Victoria Square to the busts of eminent South Australians along North Terrace – became prominent Adelaide ornaments. But Dowie also was widely known for his paintings.
John Stuart Dowie was born in Adelaide’s inner north Prospect in 1915 but, from age two, lived the rest of his life in the family home in eastern suburb Dulwich. Dowie attended the Rose Park Primary School where the art teacher insisted the 10-year-old attend the South Australian School of Art. At the school, Dowie learnt modelling under sculptor Robert Craig. His art teachers included Jessamine Buxton, Leslie Wilkie, Margaret Walloscheck, Marie Tuck and Ivor Hele.
Dowie began holding exhibitions in 1933 at the Royal South Australian Society of Arts, through to 1969. (His work was exhibited in 1941 and 1944 while he was away serving in World War II.)
In 1936, Dowie studied architecture at Adelaide University while working by Hubert Cowell & Co. as a draughtsman. The continued to attend night classes at the school of art, until 1940 when he enlisted in the 2/43 Battalion of the Australian Infantry Forces.
Dowie was one of the Rats of Tobruk: the garrison who maintained the siege of Tobruk, a port in Libya, against the Afrika Corps (German Africa Corps) between April and November 1941. When the siege was lifted, Dowie was promoted to sergeant and later working in the military history section of the department of war records in Cairo, assisting sculptor Lyndon Dadswell. In 1942, he was sent back to the military history section in Melbourne where he met fellow artist and future friend Charles Bush.
When he returned to Adelaide in 1945, the art scene was split between classically trained artists and the new modernist movement. The Contemporary Art Society of South Australia had broken away in 1942 from the Royal South Australian Society of Arts. Dowie sided with the Contemporaries. He was also a founding member of the modernist collective, Group 9.
Dowie completing his studies in 1950. He was appointed as a lecturer at The School of Art and president from 1960-1962. He maintained the friendship in Adelaide with Edward (Bill) Hayward formed in Tobruk. Hayward and wife Ursula were avid art collectors and had amassed a valuable collection at their home Carrick Hill. The couple hosted parties where Dowie was introduced to art by luminaries including Paul Gauguin, Auguste Renoir, Frank Brangwyn and many others.
These influences along with his war experiences persuaded Dowie to travel to London and Italy, where he studied at Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design (“The Cass”) and the Florence Academy of Art. At that point, he swapped sculpting for painting, working in oils. His Self Portrait Tobruk (1942-43) and Jetty at Port Willunga (1970) are among his best-known paintings.
Dowie’s sculptures are found internationally, from Windsor Castle in England to the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby. His Australia-wide work included portrait busts of Australian soprano Joan Sutherland, Jacob Epstein, who’d largely influenced Dowie’s work; and navigator Matthew Flinders. Dowie’s statues of New South Wales governor Lachlan Macquarie were in Sydney and of Queen Elizabeth II in Canberra. Australian War Memorial also held numerous examples of Dowie’s work.
Dowie’s niece Penny Dowie was awarded first place in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize in 1988.