Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/simon-fieldhouse

Birth Place

Sydney, NSW, Australia

Biography

Artist, was born in Sydney and educated at the University of Sydney. A friend of Elizabeth Evatt’s, he was taught Fine Arts by Joan Kerr who encouraged him to specialise in painting large watercolours of historic Australian buildings, meticulously delineated and usually containing a small joke about the subject, e.g. ambulances outside Sydney University Medical School. Since 1990 he has exhibited at the Robin Gibson Gallery and held solo exhibitions at the Australian Galleries, Melbourne, Kensington Gallery, Adelaide, Philip Bacon in Brisbane and Freeman in Hobart. The National Trust (NSW) Desk Diary for 2002 depicts 'Historic Architecture of Australia’ by Simon Fieldhouse, drawings done over the past ten years that include the Melbourne GPO, the Elephant House at Taronga Park Zoo, the Perth Titles Office, Brisbane’s Parliament House, Hobart’s Theatre Royal and the Edmund Wright House, Adelaide. Judge Roddy Meagher opened an exhibition of Fieldhouse’s work in 2001 (discussed Sydney Morning Herald back page c.May) and purchased a view of Sydney University Great Hall with a procession in front featuring Chancellor Leonie Kramer and Meagher himself (about to be awarded an honorary doctorate). In May 2001 Josef Lebovic’s website catalogue included two of Fieldhouse’s series of jokes about judges and the law (illustrated): The bottom of the Harbour (a large judge and a tiny barrister contemplating a tray-top of water containing a tiny Harbour Bridge and a smiling convict) and WHO DID IT (a cheerful little barrister pushing over the letters forming the three words while the same large judge muses). Fieldhouse has also done a series on the lighthouses of Australia. In February-March 2002 he and Margaret Early were in a sesquicentenary exhibition at the Sir Hermann Black Gallery, Sydney University. (Nick Vickers, director). Writers: Staff Writer Date written: 1999 Last updated: 2011

Born

b. 1956

Summary

Fieldhouse produced a series of large and meticulously detailed watercolours of historic Australian buildings - among them the Melbourne GPO and the Elephant House at Taronga Park Zoo. His pictures usually contained a small joke about the subject. He also produced a series of jokes about judges and the law.

Gender

Male

Died

None listed

Age at death

None listed