6 NEWS
6 NEWS
9 AUGUST 2024 ausdoc . com . au
Dr David Freedman ’ s life in colour
The watercolourist grew up wanting to follow in the footsteps of his artist father but trained as a surgeon instead .
Carmel Sparke IN the first of the pandemic lockdowns , Dr David Freedman was wondering how to fill his days when a pair of eastern rosellas began nesting outside his studio window .
The recently retired surgeon mainly painted landscapes but decided to take up his brushes .
That painting in watercolour led to another and another until , at the rate of one a day , he had produced 270 pictures .
It has resulted in his stunning book capturing the rich beauty of Australian birdlife , but it also resulted in him being reunited with his estranged stepbrother , Richard . They had grown up as neighbours in country Victoria in the 1950s . It was idyllic in many ways , but the families experienced an acrimonious split when Dr Freedman ’ s father and Richard ’ s mother ended up together .
“ Richard went to live with his father at the other end of Victoria , and his sister April came to live with us , so I had lost all contact with him ,” Dr Freedman tells 6minutes .
More than 50 years later , that changed simply because Dr Freedman did not know whom to ask to write the text to run alongside the watercolours he had produced .
It was April herself who mentioned Richard , who had also become , in the intervening decades , a bird lover and bird expert .
“ So I rang him up , reintroduced myself and said , ‘ Would you like to collaborate ?’” Dr Freedman says .
“ As the book evolved , we tried to make it not like a normal field book but something that was also entertaining and engaging at the same time as being informative .
“ I do think Richard ’ s text brings the book alive , and we are back in touch regularly now .”
Dr Freedman grew up wanting to follow in the footsteps of his father , who was the RAAF ’ s first official WWII war artist and later a book illustrator , art teacher and Victoria ’ s state artist . But his father put his foot down , telling him he would not support his dream because he may not make a living , advising him to paint as a hobby instead .
“ And that was the best advice I have ever
had ,” Dr Freedman admits .
He completed a medical degree , then had a surgical registrar position in Melbourne and , in 1975 , took a locum in Port Moresby in
Papua New Guinea to earn money to travel to London for further training .
Once he had arrived in Port Moresby with his wife and two children , he was asked to fill in for a few weeks for a surgeon in Mount Hagen , in the remote Western Highlands ,
‘ It helped get my mind off the trauma of the hospital . It takes an immense amount of concentration .’
— Dr David Freedman dealing with leprosy patients , huge goitres and ovarian cysts the size of watermelons .
When confronted with a procedure he had never seen , he read up on it the night
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