CHRONOLOGY

1891	Born 29 September, Marymount, Bridge of Allan, Scotland, the last of nine children to James Fairweather and Annette Fairweather (née Thorp). From six months of age brought up by aunts Jane, Isabella and Mary Fairweather, his father’s unmarried sisters, while his parents were in India.
1901	Census records him residing in Lewisham with Jane Fairweather, then aged sixty-four and ‘in charge of nephews and niece’, Isabella and Mary, his siblings Arthur and Annette, and a cook and a housemaid.
	Reunited with parents.
1902	Moves with family to ‘Forest Hill’, Beaumont, Jersey.
	Attends Victoria College (to 1907) thereafter privately schooled in Earl’s Court, London.
1910–12	Tutored in Champéry, Switzerland, in preparation for admission to the British Army.
	Census of 1911 records him in Jersey, occupation ‘Indian Forestry’.
1912–13	Passes military examinations and admitted to Sandhurst. Officer Training School, Belfast.
1914	Commissioned Second Lieutenant, Land Forces, 1st Battalion,
	Cheshire Regiment (10 June).
	Captured during Battle of Mons near Dour, France (24 August).
	POW in Fort Zinna, Torgau; Mainz, Germany.
1915	POW, Mainz; Friedberg.
1916	POW, Friedberg; Ingolstadt.
1917	POW, Ingolstadt; Crefeld; Ströhen.
	Various escape attempts, 1914–17.
	Father dies in Jersey (29 April).
1918	Armistice (11 November).
	In a prisoner exchange is billeted at The Hague, studies at the Academy of Arts, then privately with painter Johan Hendrik van Mastenbroek.
1919	Commonwealth Forestry Institute, Exeter College, Oxford (two terms).
1920	Begins studies for Fine Art Diploma (not completed), Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, under Professor Henry Tonks.
	Receives War Office Certificate from King George V for ‘gallant conduct’ in attempting to escape captivity.
1921	Studies Japanese at School of Oriental Studies, University of London; becomes interested in Chinese.
1922	Second prize for Figure Drawing, Slade School of Fine Art. Travels to Norway.
1923	Studies part-time at the Slade.
1924–25	Spends six months in Germany, mostly in Munich, then to Norway again and settles near Kvam over the winter.
1925–26	Through Tonks secures patronage of Frederick Leverton Harris, Hertford, who provides lodging and a stipend in exchange for artworks.
	Immigration nomination application for Australia lodged by maternal uncle Sydney Hood Thorp, Townsville (5 May 1926). Thorp’s sudden death in September causes application to lapse.
1927	Jersey.
1928	Emigrates to Canada, works on a chicken farm and later on a farm near Humboldt, Saskatchewan.
	Works on the Jordan River power station, Victoria, British Columbia.
1929	Caretaker at property on Prevost Island, British Columbia, for six months.
1929–32	Travels to China, ‘guided’ by a book of Chinese grammar brought from London, arrives Shanghai (around May 1929); works for the International Settlement as park attendant, and later road inspector and manager of an asphalt plant; lives opposite post office at 235 Sichuan Road, overlooking Suzhou Creek.
	Visits Hangzhou, Huzhou, Suzhou, Taishan, Beijing.
	Witnesses Japanese bombing of Shanghai (28 January 1932).
	Departs Shanghai (late 1932) for Australia but disembarks at Bali, then under Dutch occupation.
1933	Stays in Bali for about nine months.
	Begins sending paintings to Jim Ede in London.
1934	Travels on to Australia and lands at Broome, then Fremantle, stays three days and travels on to Colombo where, owing to a lack of funds, he is not allowed to stay; returns to Australia
	on the Barrabool, arrives Fremantle 19 February and travels on to Melbourne.
	Visits Leonardo Art Shop, where Gino Nibbi introduces him to William Frater; meets George Bell and Arnold Shore; exhibits at Cynthia Reed’s shop (March); participates in exhibition of the Contemporary Art Group at the Athenaeum (July–August); works on Menzies Hotel mural commission (six months); departs for Davao, Mindanao (around mid-September). In London, Bathing Scene, Bali (1933) acquired by the Contemporary Art Society (CAS) from Redfern Gallery (RG) and presented to Tate Gallery.
1935	Travels to China, lives in Beijing at Guangchang hutong, Zhonghua School of Art, where he teaches art for a period, and later 8 Huguo si jie.
	Begins to be included in regular exhibitions at RG.
1936	Sails from Tanggu, China (late April); travels to Keelung, Hong Kong, Palawan, Tawau, Sourabaya, Semarang, Cirebon, Jakarta, Macassar (May–June); arrives Zamboanga (24 June).
	Ede resigns from the Tate Gallery (October).
	Hospitalised in Manila with lead poisoning, tip of right-hand little finger removed (December).
	Procession in Bali (1933) acquired by Leicester Museum and Art Gallery.
1937	Domestic fire in Manila destroys paintings.
1938	Departs Manila, arrives Brisbane (September).
	Lives and works in vacant Beach Theatre, Sandgate (October–June 1939); experiments unsuccessfully with waterglass.
	CAS acquires A Chinese Tea Garden (n.d.).
1939	Alligator Creek, Cairns (10 June); paints first Australian subjects.
	Browns Bay (October); starts building first house.
	Britain declares war on Germany; Australia follows shortly after.
1940	Departs for Hong Kong to enlist and support the war effort after German occupation of Norway (May); unable to sign up for war service with the Scots Greys; travels by train to Saigon, across country to Bangkok, and by train to Malaya and Singapore; works in Singapore censoring French and German letters (nine months).
1941	Applies for job as interpreter of Chinese in Burma; works in advertising agency in Calcutta (around May); travels to Kulu
	Valley near the Tibetan border; Lahore.
	Recommissioned Temporary Captain, 5th Mahratta Light Infantry, Bombay; serves in Italian POW camp No. 2, Bangalore.
1942	Appointed Lieutenant, Bangalore.
1943	Discharged from Army. Arrives Melbourne (1 June), then to Brisbane; Cairns; Cooktown (1 July – October); Sandgate (December–January 1945).
	Experiments with soap and casein.
	Begins translating Chinese novel using dictionary sent by Lina
	Bryans.
	Chinese Tea Garden (c. 1936), presented by CAS to Belfast Museum and Art Gallery.
1944	Submits application for director, Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney (February).
	Commences work as labourer in aircraft factory, Eagle Farm (late April).
	Mother dies, Mill Hill, London (17 April).
1945	Purchases old boat and sets sail, landing by chance on Bribie
	Island on mud flat by Dux Creek, White Patch (February).
	Theft of diaries; departure for Melbourne.
1946	Lives at Lina Bryans’ Darebin Bridge House, 899 Heidelberg
	Road, Darebin.
	Sends forty-five paintings to London with Laurie Thomas; another lot of more than one hundred paintings sent directly to RG, arrive badly damaged.
	At suggestion of William Frater, Treania Bennett of Macquarie Galleries (MG), Sydney, views Fairweather’s paintings in Melbourne and expresses interest in representing him.
1947	Moves to Cairns, lives in old cow shed and derelict saw mill at Glen Boughton.
1948	Browns Bay, Cairns.
	Corresponds with Catherine Thorp (Aunt Kate), widow of Sydney Hood Thorp, former mayor of Townsville, who takes an active interest in Fairweather and becomes an important family contact for him in Australia.
	Sends first paintings to MG.
1949	Works as bush cutter in Cairns (to November), then travels to Brisbane.
	First of many exhibitions at MG, Sydney.
1950–51	Lives in tent, Townsville (January); walks and hitchhikes to Darwin (2 April – November 1951); works on roads as labourer; lives in rear section of deregistered HMAS Kuru at Dinah Beach, Frances Bay.
1952	Sets sail on self-made raft for Dili, Portuguese Timor (2 April), ostensibly to see Hubert Stephen Cross, a pearler who had earlier worked in Broome; RAAF air search abandoned with Fairweather presumed dead.
	Obituary by Alan McCulloch published in the Herald, Melbourne (13 May); makes landfall on Roti Island, Indonesia (17 May), found by police patrol and taken to nearby village; detained in Hotel Dwiwarna, Koepang (Kupang), as illegal immigrant; after one month sent to Bali and held there for a month; deported on British ship Malika to Singapore and placed in Nantina Home for Destitutes; departs for London on the Clytoneus (24 August); writes an account of the raft voyage and his ordeal. Arrives London (September), then to Dublin to seek publisher for illustrated manuscript; labouring job in Department of Forestry digging ditches in Little Topsam, Exeter, Devon, to repay fare (November), eventually sacked.
1953	Departs London on the Nelson Star (23 June), passage paid by family, arrives Sydney (13 August); unable to find work, travels to Brisbane; returns to Bribie Island, makes tent out of tarpaulin and sets up camp near Bongaree (31 August).
1955	Resumes study of Chinese.
1957	AGNSW acquires Roi Soleil (1956–57); Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, acquires Ave Maria (1957).
1958	Begins mixing synthetic polymer paint (PVA) with gouache. Finishes translation of texts that would be published as The Drunken Buddha (December).
1959	Gethsemane (1958) included in Blake Prize for Religious Art, AGNSW.
1962	Treated for ear infection, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane (August).
	Overnight queues for MG exhibition; Sydney Morning Herald art critic Wallace Thornton calls Fairweather ‘Our Greatest Painter’ (15 August); Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) acquires Epiphany (1961–62).
	Included in Who’s Who in Australia for the first time.
1963	Bribie Island Bridge opens, connecting the island to the mainland (19 October).
	Included in ‘VII Bienal de Sao Paulo’, Australia component organised by the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board, Canberra.
	Inaugural issue of Art and Australia features Abstract (1960) on the cover and long poem by Laurie Thomas.
1964	Laurie Thomas presents ‘Six Modern Australian Painters: Ian Fairweather’, ABC Television (7 September).
1965	‘Ian Fairweather: The Drunken Buddha’ and ‘Other Recent Works by Ian Fairweather’, MG (5–17 August); again people queue overnight for paintings.
	Publishes The Drunken Buddha (University of Queensland Press, Brisbane), translated from the Chinese and with twelve illustrations.
	‘Fairweather: A Retrospective Exhibition’, QAG (3 June – 4 July) tours to state galleries (concludes 13 March 1966); views the exhibition in Brisbane.
	Turtle and Temple Gong (1965) wins W. D. & H. O. Wills Art Prize, David Jones’ Art Gallery, Sydney (4–14 August). Departs by air to Singapore (7 August) then boat to Madras, India, with plans to continue overland to London; ill in Madras; returns by air to Australia via Darwin (11 September); arrives back on Bribie Island (14 September).
	Applies to the council to lease land he is living on.
1966	Brother Arthur Fairweather makes a surprise visit to Bribie Island (27 June), then to Auckland, New Zealand to visit nephew Ian Alister Fairweather.
	Janusz Rawicz¯-Wyszomirski is arrested and charged with stealing six paintings between 19 and 25 July (27 July); Caboolture Magistrates Court rejects guilty plea (28 July). Fairweather departs Brisbane on the Himalaya to Sydney and Fremantle, Naples (early August), then by air to London. Court drops charges against Rawicz¯-Wyszomirski (15 September); Fairweather returns to Australia via Hong Kong (arriving 7 October). On his Incoming Passenger card Fairweather indicates that his intended length of stay in Australia is ‘Permanent’. Monastery (1961) wins John McCaughey Prize (October). Residential tenancy lease is granted by Lands Department, with annual rent of £2 and conditions (November); departs
	again for London, fleeing court appeal (December–January 1967).
1967	Arrives back in Australia (20 January). On his Incoming Passenger card Fairweather indicates that his intended length of stay in Australia is ‘Indefinite’. Returns to Bribie Island.
1969	Experiences difficulty standing and walking.
1970	This Day Tonight, ABC Television profile (early August) prompts health inspections by Caboolture Shire councillors and the threat of eviction; admitted to Royal Brisbane Hospital suffering from dehydration (11 August).
	Water connected and a showerhead and tap fixed to tree (1 December); tax inquiry, prompted by press reports of earnings.
1971	Admitted to Royal Brisbane Hospital for treatment for arthritis (mid-April), discharged 27 April; visits Novello Convalescent Home but rejects idea of going into care.
	New two-room house with oven and refrigerator completed (late May), electricity finally connected (around September).
1972	Cooks meals in new house and resumes painting for a few months.
1973	Treated for skin cancer at the Radium Institute (May).
	Stops painting; spends time reading; increasingly frail; daily visits by Bribie Island taxi driver and friend Alroy Fleming.
	Receives International Cooperation Art Award (26 September).
	Cousin John Millais Cooper visits (29 September).
1974	Hospitalised for skin-cancer operation (March).
	Admitted to Royal Brisbane Hospital following heart attack (19 May).
	Dies 10.30 p.m. (20 May).
	Cremated at Albany Creek Crematorium, Brisbane (23 May); ashes scattered on Bribie Island.
	Caboolture Shire Council dismantles and burns huts in consultation with the Fairweather estate (28 November).
1975	Petition signed by residents of Bribie Island and surrounding areas is submitted (12 February) by Evan Adermann, Federal Member for Fisher, to Governor-General Sir John Kerr, protesting the destruction of Fairweather’s huts by Caboolture Shire Council and requesting permission for the historic structures to be reconstructed.
	Probate on estate clears with gross value of $69,653 (27
	February), with legacy of $10,000 to Alroy Fleming; all real and personal estate bequeathed to niece Rosemary Corisande Waters, Gloucester, England.
1976	Auction of artworks from Fairweather’s estate, Christie’s, Melbourne (28 April).
1978	Nourma Abbott-Smith, Ian Fairweather: Profile of a Painter, published by University of Queensland Press.
1981	Murray Bail, Ian Fairweather, published by Bay Books, Sydney (revised as Fairweather, Murdoch Books, 2009).
1984	‘Ian Fairweather’, Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane (18 May – 14 June, eighty works, including early drawings and paintings from Rosemary Waters).