B.J. Waterhouse was born in Leeds, England in 1876. He later moved to Australia with his mother and two sisters in 1885. He was educated in Burwood, Sydney and later studied architecture at the Sydney Technical College. From 1908 he built up a successful architectural practice on Sydney’s lower north shore, which at the time was experiencing a building boom. His early architectural work was in the Arts and Crafts style but after the Great War he designed Mediterranean influenced buildings such as May Gibbs 's well known (extant) house, Nutcote . Active in public life he was a leading member of the Institute of Architects and the Royal Australian Institute of Architects where he served in several leadership positions.

Waterhouse was also a skilled draftsman and occasionally exhibited his pencil drawings and watercolours with the Royal Art Society between 1902 and 1941. He had a solo exhibition of his drawings at the Macquarie Gallery, Sydney in 1932. The Sydney Morning Herald, reviewing the exhibition in June 1932 noted:

“The interest of Mr. B.J. Waterhouse’s pencil drawings, which he has placed on view at the Macquarie galleries, lies as much in their subjects as in the manner of treatment. Mr. Waterhouse’s is an objective style. He sees the quaint houses, the massive buildings, of the Old World through the eye of an architect, and sets them down on paper clearly and coolly, without much attempt at composition, except what rises accidentally from the arrangement of the subjects as they meet his eye. His style is always fresh and crisp and definite. He reveals planes deftly and smoothly, never clouding his effects with over-elaboration.”

Waterhouse exhibited eight pencil works at the November 1938 'Painter-Etchers’ and Graphic Art Society of Australia’ exhibition at David Jones, Sydney. He was also a foundation member of the Sydney based `XV Independent Group’ (active 1938-1945) and exhibited at several of their exhibitions at Farmers department store. Most of his exhibited works from this period seem to be architectural drawings of British and Continental themes.

Waterhouse was appointed a Trustee of the National Gallery of NSW [now Art Gallery of New South Wales] in 1922 and became the President of the Trustees in 1939, a position he held up to 1958. Perhaps reflecting the period interest in childrens’ art education, Waterhouse became a vocal advocate for the distribution of Art Gallery paintings to schools, as can be seen in this March 1941 report in the Sydney Morning Herald :

“Art should be talked [sic] to schoolchildren from the earliest years, and in art I include architecture and garden planning,” said Mr. B.J. Waterhouse the president of the National Art Gallery, at the Mosman Children’s Library yesterday afternoon… Mr. Waterhouse suggested that the Art Gallery should become the central depot from which the best pictures should be sent to all schools in the State for exhibition. “There should be a small annexe attached to all schools to house the pictures sent to them from the gallery,” he said, “thus making the schools satellite art galleries.”

Waterhouse served as a trustee of the National Gallery of NSW under four gallery directors – G.V.P. Mann, James S. MacDonald, William Ashton and Hal Missingham. Although a conservative, Waterhouse’s term as president of the trustees coincided with the period when the NSW gallery finally embraced the collecting of modernist art works.

Writers:

Clifford-Smith, Silas

Date written:

2011

Last updated:

2011