Olive Cotton
Encyclopedia
Olive Cotton was a pioneering Australian modernist female photographer of the 1930s and 40s working in Sydney
. As a female photographer in Australia of that era, she was overlooked and her work at the Dupain studio was considered "art" rather than commercial. Cotton only became a national "name" with a retrospective and touring exhibition 50 years later in 1985. A book of her life and work came out in 1995. Olive Cotton captured her childhood friend Max Dupain
from the sidelines at photoshoots, e.g. "Fashion shot, Cronulla Sandhills, circa 1937" and made portraits of him. They married in 1937.
Olive Edith Cotton was born in 1911, the eldest child in an artistic, intellectual family. Her parents, Leo and Florence provided a musical background along with political and social awareness. Her mother was a painter and pianist while Leo was a geologist and academic who took photographs on Sir Ernest Shackleton
’s expedition to the Antarctic
in 1907 and knew fellow geologist and explorer, Sir Douglas Mawson
. The Cotton family and their five children lived in the then bushland suburb of Hornsby
in Sydney's north. An uncle, Frank Cotton
was a professor of physiology
and her grandfather, also Frank Cotton, was a Member of Parliament in the first Labor
Caucus
.
Given a Kodak No.0 Box Brownie camera at the age of 11, Cotton and her father made the laundry into a darkroom "with the enlarger
plugged into the ironing light". Here Cotton processed film and printed her first black and white images. While on holidays with her family at Newport Beach
in 1924, Cotton met Max Dupain
and they became friends, sharing a passion for photography. The photograph "She-oaks" (1928) was taken at Bungan Beach headland in this period.
Cotton attended the Methodist Ladies' College
, Burwood
in Sydney from 1921 to 1929, gained a scholarship and went on to complete a B.A. at the University of Sydney
in 1933, majoring in English and Mathematics.
.
She exhibited her first photograph, "Dusk", at the New South Wales Photographic Society’s Interstate Exhibition of 1932. Exhibiting frequently, her photography was personal and observing qualities of light in the surroundings. After university she pursued photography by joining her childhood friend Dupain at his new studio, 24 Bond Street, Sydney. Her contemporaries included Damien Parer
, Geoff Powell, the model Jean Lorraine and photographer Olga Sharpe who frequented the studio.
In Australia of the 1930s clients assumed a man would be the photographer. Cotton wryly referred to herself as "the assistant". However whenever possible Cotton photographed visiting celebrities or interesting objects in the studio, even capturing Dupain working in her piece, "Fashion shot, Cronulla Sandhills, circa 1937" and made portraits of him.
The Commonwealth Bank's staff magazine Bank Notes featured Cotton’s more non-commercial photographs as illustrations.
(1935) was photographed in the studio after Cotton had bought some inexpensive china from Woolworth's to replace the old chipped studio crockery. In it she used a technique of backlighting to cast bold shadows towards the viewer to express a dance theme between the shapes of the tea cups, their saucers and their shadows. It was exhibited locally at the time and in the London Salon of Photography in 1935. It has since become Cotton’s signature image and was acknowledged on a stamp commemorating 150 years of photography in Australia in 1991. Tea Cup Ballet features on the cover of the book Olive Cotton: Photographer published by the National Library of Australia in 1995.
Shasta Daisies (1937) and The Budapest String Quartet (circa 1937) were included in the Victorian Salon of Photography exhibition of 1937.
where she briefly taught mathematics at Frensham School
, although she returned to Sydney to manage the studio while he was on war service (the Camouflage Unit) during the years from 1942 to '45. In the year she returned to Sydney, she produced her first industrial and architectural photographic work and broadened her subject matter. In 1944 she married Ross McInerney. She received numerous commissions in 1945, including photographs of winter and spring flowers for Helen Blaxland’s book Flowerpieces which also included some images by Dupain. Sydney Ure Smith was an advocate of her work, and she did many commissions for his various art publications.
In mid 1947 Cotton went to live with her husband Ross McInerney on a small farm nearKoorawatha
; they had a daughter Sally, born December 1946, and nearly two years later a son, Peter. She taught Maths at Cowra High School for five years until 1964 when she opened a small photographic studio in Cowra Cowra
taking many portraits, wedding photographs, etc, for people in the town and surrounding district.
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
. As a female photographer in Australia of that era, she was overlooked and her work at the Dupain studio was considered "art" rather than commercial. Cotton only became a national "name" with a retrospective and touring exhibition 50 years later in 1985. A book of her life and work came out in 1995. Olive Cotton captured her childhood friend Max Dupain
Max Dupain
Maxwell Spencer Dupain AC was a renowned Australian modernist photographer.-Early life:Dupain received his first camera as a gift in 1924, spurring his interest in photography He later joined the Photographic Society of NSW, and when he left school, he worked for Cecil Bostock in Sydney.-Early...
from the sidelines at photoshoots, e.g. "Fashion shot, Cronulla Sandhills, circa 1937" and made portraits of him. They married in 1937.
Early life
...Olive Edith Cotton was born in 1911, the eldest child in an artistic, intellectual family. Her parents, Leo and Florence provided a musical background along with political and social awareness. Her mother was a painter and pianist while Leo was a geologist and academic who took photographs on Sir Ernest Shackleton
Ernest Shackleton
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...
’s expedition to the Antarctic
Antarctic
The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...
in 1907 and knew fellow geologist and explorer, Sir Douglas Mawson
Douglas Mawson
Sir Douglas Mawson, OBE, FRS, FAA was an Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer and Academic. Along with Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton, Mawson was a key expedition leader during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.-Early work:He was appointed geologist to an...
. The Cotton family and their five children lived in the then bushland suburb of Hornsby
Hornsby, New South Wales
* Highest Maximum Temperature: 42 °C* Lowest Maximum Temperature: 4.9 °C* Warmest Month: January* Coolest Month: July* Highest Precipitation: February* Lowest Precipitation: July-Notable residents:...
in Sydney's north. An uncle, Frank Cotton
Frank Cotton
Frank Stanley Cotton was an Australian lecturer in physiology, specialising in the study of the effects of physical strain on the human body.-Early life:...
was a professor of physiology
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
and her grandfather, also Frank Cotton, was a Member of Parliament in the first Labor
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
Caucus
Caucus
A caucus is a meeting of supporters or members of a political party or movement, especially in the United States and Canada. As the use of the term has been expanded the exact definition has come to vary among political cultures.-Origin of the term:...
.
Given a Kodak No.0 Box Brownie camera at the age of 11, Cotton and her father made the laundry into a darkroom "with the enlarger
Enlarger
An enlarger is a specialized transparency projector used to produce photographic prints from film or glass negatives using the gelatin silver process, or from transparencies.-Construction:...
plugged into the ironing light". Here Cotton processed film and printed her first black and white images. While on holidays with her family at Newport Beach
Newport, New South Wales
Newport is a suburb in northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Newport is located 31 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Pittwater Council, and is part of the Northern Beaches region....
in 1924, Cotton met Max Dupain
Max Dupain
Maxwell Spencer Dupain AC was a renowned Australian modernist photographer.-Early life:Dupain received his first camera as a gift in 1924, spurring his interest in photography He later joined the Photographic Society of NSW, and when he left school, he worked for Cecil Bostock in Sydney.-Early...
and they became friends, sharing a passion for photography. The photograph "She-oaks" (1928) was taken at Bungan Beach headland in this period.
Cotton attended the Methodist Ladies' College
MLC School
MLC School is an independent day school for girls, located in Burwood, Sydney. Founded in 1886, MLC admits students from pre-kinder age through to Year 12, and is a Uniting Church of Australia school.- History :...
, Burwood
Burwood, New South Wales
Burwood is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Burwood is located 12 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of Burwood Council....
in Sydney from 1921 to 1929, gained a scholarship and went on to complete a B.A. at the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
in 1933, majoring in English and Mathematics.
Photography
Cotton joined the Sydney Camera Circle and the Photographic Society of New South Wales gaining instruction and encouragement from important photographers such as Harold CazneauxHarold Cazneaux
Harold Cazneaux was and Australian pictorialist photographer; a pioneer whose style had an indelible impact on the development of Australian photographic history. In 1916 he was a founder of the Pictorialist Sydney Camera Circle...
.
She exhibited her first photograph, "Dusk", at the New South Wales Photographic Society’s Interstate Exhibition of 1932. Exhibiting frequently, her photography was personal and observing qualities of light in the surroundings. After university she pursued photography by joining her childhood friend Dupain at his new studio, 24 Bond Street, Sydney. Her contemporaries included Damien Parer
Damien Parer
Damien Peter Parer was an Australian war photographer. He became famous for his war photography of the Second World War, and was killed by Japanese machinegun fire at Peleliu, Palau. He married Elizabeth Marie Cotter on 23 March 1944, and his son, producer Damien Parer, was born after his father...
, Geoff Powell, the model Jean Lorraine and photographer Olga Sharpe who frequented the studio.
In Australia of the 1930s clients assumed a man would be the photographer. Cotton wryly referred to herself as "the assistant". However whenever possible Cotton photographed visiting celebrities or interesting objects in the studio, even capturing Dupain working in her piece, "Fashion shot, Cronulla Sandhills, circa 1937" and made portraits of him.
The Commonwealth Bank's staff magazine Bank Notes featured Cotton’s more non-commercial photographs as illustrations.
Signature photographs
Tea Cup BalletTea cup ballet
Tea cup ballet is a 1935 photograph by Australian modernist photographer Olive Cotton. It is arguably Cotton's best known work. The photographs depicts six tea cups and saucers lit so to form shadows that suggest the form of ballet dancers....
(1935) was photographed in the studio after Cotton had bought some inexpensive china from Woolworth's to replace the old chipped studio crockery. In it she used a technique of backlighting to cast bold shadows towards the viewer to express a dance theme between the shapes of the tea cups, their saucers and their shadows. It was exhibited locally at the time and in the London Salon of Photography in 1935. It has since become Cotton’s signature image and was acknowledged on a stamp commemorating 150 years of photography in Australia in 1991. Tea Cup Ballet features on the cover of the book Olive Cotton: Photographer published by the National Library of Australia in 1995.
Shasta Daisies (1937) and The Budapest String Quartet (circa 1937) were included in the Victorian Salon of Photography exhibition of 1937.
1940s
After her separation from Max Dupain, Cotton moved to MittagongMittagong, New South Wales
Mittagong is a town located in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia, in Wingecarribee Shire. At the 2006 census, Mittagong had a population of 7,460 people. The town can be seen as the gateway to the Southern Highlands when coming from Sydney. The town is close to Bowral, Berrima,...
where she briefly taught mathematics at Frensham School
Frensham School
Frensham School is an independent, non-denominational, secondary, day and boarding school for girls, located at Mittagong, south of Sydney, in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia....
, although she returned to Sydney to manage the studio while he was on war service (the Camouflage Unit) during the years from 1942 to '45. In the year she returned to Sydney, she produced her first industrial and architectural photographic work and broadened her subject matter. In 1944 she married Ross McInerney. She received numerous commissions in 1945, including photographs of winter and spring flowers for Helen Blaxland’s book Flowerpieces which also included some images by Dupain. Sydney Ure Smith was an advocate of her work, and she did many commissions for his various art publications.
In mid 1947 Cotton went to live with her husband Ross McInerney on a small farm nearKoorawatha
Koorawatha, New South Wales
Koorawatha is a town in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia, on the Olympic Highway between Cowra and Young. It was once a large and thriving centre of activity but now has only a hotel and a cafe. It is, nevertheless, a very fine old-style hotel, though not a fancy one, with a...
; they had a daughter Sally, born December 1946, and nearly two years later a son, Peter. She taught Maths at Cowra High School for five years until 1964 when she opened a small photographic studio in Cowra Cowra
Cowra, New South Wales
Cowra is a town in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia in the Cowra Shire. It is located on the Mid-Western Highway, 317 kilometres west of Sydney on the banks of the Lachlan River at an altitude of 310 metres above sea level. At the 2006 census Cowra had a population of 8,430...
taking many portraits, wedding photographs, etc, for people in the town and surrounding district.
Exhibitions
Among others, her work was shown in the following exhibitions- 1938 Commemorative Salon of Photography exhibition held by the Photographic Society of NSW as part of the Australian 150th anniversary celebrations.
- 1938 Group show with the Contemporary Camera Groupe at David Jones GalleryDavid Jones LimitedDavid Jones Limited , colloquially known as DJs, is a high-end Australian department store chain.David Jones was founded in 1838 by David Jones, a Welsh immigrant, and is claimed to be the oldest continuously operating department store in the world still trading under its original name. It...
, Sydney. - 1981 Australian Women Photographers 1890-1950 touring exhibition, curated by Jenni Mather, Christine Gillespie and Barbara Hall.
- 1985 Olive Cotton Photographs 1924-1984 retrospective held at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, touring numerous regional galleries in NSW, Victoria and Queensland throughout 1986.
Collections
- National Gallery of AustraliaNational Gallery of AustraliaThe National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
, Canberra - Art Gallery of New South WalesArt Gallery of New South WalesThe Art Gallery of New South Wales , located in The Domain in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was established in 1897 and is the most important public gallery in Sydney and the fourth largest in Australia...
, Sydney - National Gallery of VictoriaNational Gallery of VictoriaThe National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
, Melbourne - Waverley City Council Collection, Melbourne
- Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Victoria