Forging the Bight HMAS Sydney
Storm clouds lit by the sun, rolling waves and Sydney riding high as she crosses the Bight.
- About John Downton
Born in Sydney in 1939, John Downton (OAM) is one of Australia's finest international landscape and navy artists. He was awarded the Order of Australia (OAM) for services to visual arts as a landscape and maritime artist and for services to the community in 2017.
He initially trained and worked in watchmaking but realised his dream later to become a professional artist. He attended classes at the Royal Art Society of NSW and private lessons with George Duncan.
He is passionate about the sea, and he travelled to East Timor in 2000 as an official Navy artist and documented naval and peacekeeping activities in paintings. He continues to paint historical and present-day naval activities, and a gallery has been named after him at the Fleet Air Arm Museum at HMAS Albatross.
John Downton has held exhibitions in Sydney, Eden, Canberra, and internationally. Companies and public institutions have used John's work on calendars and cards. If you want to know more about John’s life he has published a 338 page autobiography, The Dirty Big Red Book: Downton, An Artist on the Move, which includes colour photographs of many of John's works.
- About HMAS Sydney (ll)
Sydney was a Modified Leander Class, Light Cruiser built in Tyne, England. On 11 August, Sydney made her long-awaited entry through Sydney Heads and into Port Jackson where, just as with Sydney, her arrival was viewed from the shore by thousands of citizens who had turned out to see her.
In addition to her naval complement, Sydney carried six members of the Royal Australian Air Force who manned and maintained her embarked Seagull V amphibian aircraft.
More reading
- Additional resources for John Downton
- Additional resources for HMAS Sydney (ll)
