HOWARD TAYLOR

Born: 1918 Hamilton, Victoria

Died: 2001

• Contemporary
• Landscape
• Painter
• Sculptor
• Established

HOWARD TAYLOR

Biography

1918 29 August, born in Hamilton, Victoria. Son of Eleanor Minnie and Charles Edmund Taylor. Lives in South Australia until 1932.

1932 Family moves to Perth, Western Australia. Studies at Perth Modern School.

1937 21 July, enlists in the Royal Australian Air Force. Goes to Point Cook, Victoria, for pilot training.

1938 Awarded Sword of Honour as outstanding pilot of the year. 25 July, transfers to the RAF, goes to United Kingdom.

1940 19 May, captured and interned in a POW camp in Germany. Interned in various POW camps in Germany and Poland for the duration of the war.

1945 22 November, returns to Perth.

1946 20 February, demobilised from RAAF. Returns to United Kingdom. Marries Sheila Smith. Enrols as a part-time student at the Birmingham College of Art on an RAAF rehabilitation grant.

1949 January, returns with family to Western Australia and establishes home and studio in Bickley. First solo exhibition at Newspaper House Gallery.

1951 Teaches painting and drawing at Perth Technical College; continues in this position (part-time) until 1965.

1955 Acts as juror for the Perth Prize for Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of Western Australia.

1960 Visits the United Kingdom and Europe with Sheila for six months. Sculpture commission: Fremantle Passenger Terminal murals, Fremantle Port Authority.

1965 Teaches painting, drawing and sculpture at the School of Architecture and Planning, Western Australian Institute of Technology; continues in this position (part-time) for four years.

1967 Moves to Northcliffe, Western Australia.

1975 Awarded Western Australian Arts Council Fellowship. Sculpture commission: The black stump, AMP Fire and General Insurance Co., Perth.

1977 Appointed Artist-in-Residence, Western Australian Institute of Technology.

1978 Awarded Visual Arts Board Grant, Australia Council. Sculpture commission: Way through, Western Australian Institute of Technology.

1980 Sculpture commission: Forest trees, City of Bunbury. Visits the United Kingdom.

1986 Receives Australia Council Emeritus Award.

1988 Sculpture commission: Compass and perspective, Parliament House, Canberra.

1989 Appointed a Member of the Order of Australia.

1991 Appointed a Fellow, Curtin University of Technology, Perth.

1993 Receives honorary degree of Doctor of Letters, University of Western Australia.

1999 Honoured by the Western Australian State Government as a ‘Living Treasure’.

2000 Receives Lifetime Achievement Award, Citizen of the Year Awards, Western Australian State Government.

2001 Receives honorary degree of Doctor of Technology, Curtin University of Technology, Perth. 19 July, dies in Perth.