Иан Фейрвезер: Шотландиялық суретшінің өмірі мен шығармашылығы

Scottish painter

Ian Fairweather (29 September 189120 May 1974) was a Scottish painter resident in Australia for much of his life. He combined western and Asian influences in his work.

Ian Fairweather was born in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire, Scotland in 1891. His parents returned to India when he was a baby, leaving him in the care of a great aunt, and he did not see them again until he was 10 years old. He received early schooling at Victoria College in Jersey, in London, and in Champéry, Switzerland, before attending officer training school at Belfast where his rank was second lieutenant. During World War I he was captured by the Germans in France at the Battle of Mons and spent the next four years in prisoner of war camps. While captured, he was permitted to study drawing, Chinese and Japanese. He was responsible for the illustrations in many POW magazines. His four year incarceration included lengthy periods of solitary confinement as a result of repeated escape attempts. Fairweather's work was included in the exhibition "Australian Painting Today" at the Tate Gallery, London and in the same year was selected to represent Australia at the São Paulo Art Biennial. He is represented in all state galleries in Australia, the Tate Gallery, London, City Gallery, Leicester, and the Ulster Museum, Belfast. Ironically, the only exhibition of his own works he ever saw was a 1964 retrospective at the Queensland Art Gallery. In 1965 Fairweather published "The Drunken Buddha" (University of Qld Press, Brisbane), which he had translated from the Chinese and illustrated with twelve of his paintings. It is a novel based on the life of Tao Chi whose eccentric approach to religious teaching was in accordance with an ancient and respected Chinese tradition of how a sage should behave. Murray Bail has written the monograph Fairweather (1981; revised edition 2009). Ian Fairweather: A Life in Letters by Claire Roberts and John Thompson was published in October 2019 by Text Publishing. In April 2019 Fairweather's painting  "Barbecue" sold for $1.7 million.