A rugby league legend and a show business legend were among more than 120 people who paid homage last week to another living legend, watercolour artist Sidney Fort.

League great Jack Gibson and entertainer Col Joye joined artists, writers and former Channel Nine work associates at Sidney Fort: A Life in Watercolour, a one-night tribute to the pioneer TV art director and set designer.

More than 100 works from the hundreds of paintings in his amazing oeuvre of watercolours were on display in the exhibition, at the Chic Café in Neutral Bay.

The one-night tribute also include the launch of a website dedicated to his life, www.sidneyfort.com.au

It features more than 300 paintings from distinct periods in his years as a master of watercolour - The Greek Gifts (from his three visits to the land of the gods), Mostly Naked, The Landscapes, Sidney's Harbour and Morotai '45 - and also reproduces photos and freeze-frames of stars and crew in scenes from Australian Bandstand, in which Sid Fort revolutionised television set design.

Longtime Bandstand director and friend Warwick Freeman told the gathering at the exhibition that in his time at Channel Nine, "Sid enjoyed the largest canvas for his visual wonderland, creating, inspiring and producing masterpieces of set design for thousands of shows".

But privately he had pursued another dream "creating masterpieces in watercolour that reflect his love of the body beautiful, especially the feminine form, the classics and the classical and ancient worlds".

The "mastery he exhibited in the artwork that was transmitted into millions of homes across Australia in Bandstand, Bobby Limb's Sound of Music and a host of other shows is more than matched by his artistry as a watercolourist",he said.

Others at the exhibition included artists Kevin Hardacre, Anne Cape and Margaret Ashenhurst.from Hilton Hordern Galleries.

Sidney Fort, now living in retirement, is 86.