By Casey Neill
Life-long Noble Park resident and artist Fred Woodman has died, aged 88.
The Noble Park Community Art Show founding member passed away on Friday 16 September.
His watercolour exhibition Local Heathland Flora that features 95 plant portraits has been on exhibition throughout the city over the years.
The portraits are of plants that still exist in the Alex Wilkie Nature Reserve and Coomoora Woodland and some took three years to complete.
Some are now part of the Greater Dandenong civic collection.
In an online tribute, the Noble Park Community Art Show committee and Noble Park Community Centre management committee said Fred was “a fixture within the local community, not just the art community” and would be deeply missed.
“His genuine interest and passion for art and other artists could get anyone excited about creating their own masterpiece.”
Community centre manager Brian Woodman said the art show, to be held from Friday 14 to Sunday 16 October this year, would feature a tribute to Fred.
“There will be not only a tribute this year, but there’ll be an ongoing tribute to Fred,” he said.
“At the art show we’ll have a number of his works displayed in a special display board, which will honour his work with us but also in the art field and the wider community.
“The community centre will be taking one of his pieces of work and it will be placed on recognition at the centre as an ongoing piece of work.
“He was there from the very beginning.”
In 2013, Fred’s art show submission was an acrylic rendition of the amorphophallus titanum flower, commonly known as the corpse flower.
The spathe’s attractive colour inspired the painting. Fred had a particular interest and appreciation in plants’ natural beauty.
A selection of his highly-detailed botanical art work was exhibited at Dandenong’s Laurel Lodge in June last year, when the Heritage Hill building reopened as an art gallery following extensive refurbishment.
Fred received the Foundation Award at the 2013 Noble Park Community Awards, which recognised the suburb’s top contributors.
The Foundation Award was for life-long services to the Noble Park community.
When Fred was told he was the fifth person to be awarded this recognition, he reportedly replied that he would from then be known as Frederick the Fifth.
A funeral service will be held in the Wilson Chapel at Springvale Botanical Cemetery, 600 Princes Highway, Springvale, on Friday 23 September, at 10.15am.
