John Dowie (artist)

[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.

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.

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,[a] 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.

[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.