Olive Pink
Encyclopedia
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
illustrator, anthropologist
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
, gardener, and activist for aboriginal
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
rights.
Pink spent much of her life agitating and being a passionate advocate for improved rights and conditions for Australian aborigines. She never married, having lost a 'very dear friend' Captain Harold Southern who was killed at Gallipoli in 1915. In her later years, Pink became largely resigned to the minimal progress she had made and concentrated on botanical pursuits and established the currently named Olive Pink Botanic Garden
Olive Pink Botanic Garden
Olive Pink Botanic Garden is a botanic garden in Alice Springs in Australia's Northern Territory, specialising in plants native to the arid central Australian region.-History:...
in Alice Springs.
Early life
The eldest child of Robert Stuart Pink and his wife Eveline Fanny Margaret (née Kerr), Pink was educated at Hobart Girls' High School and later studied art at Hobart Technical School under acclaimed artist and sculptor Benjamin SheppardBenjamin Sheppard
Benjamin Joseph Sheppard was an Australian sportsman who played first-class cricket for Victoria and Australian rules football with Melbourne and Richmond in the Victorian Football League ....
. In 1909 she joined the staff of the school.
Her father died in 1907, and in 1911 she moved with her mother and brother to Perth, Western Australia
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
and then in 1914 to Sydney
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...
, offering art lessons both privately and in private girls' schools. In May 1915, she joined the New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
Department of Public Works as a tracer having attained a Town Planning Diploma the previous year. Sometime later she moved to the NSW Government Railways and Tramways
New South Wales Government Railways
The New South Wales Government Railways was the government department that operated the New South Wales Government's railways until the establishment of the Public Transport Commission in 1972. Although later known officially as the Department of Railways, New South Wales, it was still generally...
where she designed various advertising posters. During this period, she developed her artistic skills further by attending classes at the 'Sydney Art School', one of the most influential art schools in Australia and run by Julian Ashton
Julian Ashton
Julian Rossi Ashton was an Australian artist and teacher, known for his support of the Heidelberg School and for his influential art school in Sydney....
.
Central Australia
In 1926 she holidayed with well known welfare worker and anthropologist Daisy BatesDaisy Bates (Australia)
Daisy May Bates, CBE was an Irish Australian journalist, welfare worker and lifelong student of Australian Aboriginal culture and society. She was known among the native people as 'Kabbarli' .-Early life:...
in remote Ooldea
Ooldea, South Australia
Ooldea is a tiny settlement in South Australia. It is on the eastern edge of the Nullarbor Plain, 863 km west of Port Augusta on the Trans-Australian Railway...
on the edge of the Nullarbor Plain
Nullarbor Plain
The Nullarbor Plain is part of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi-arid country of southern Australia, located on the Great Australian Bight coast with the Great Victoria Desert to its north. It is the world's largest single piece of limestone, and occupies an area of about...
, having her first encounter with aboriginal culture. In 1930, Pink found herself retrenched from her government position and with her interest having been piqued by visits to the remote countryside, she travelled to central Australia sketching desert flora.
She returned to Sydney and attended lectures in anthropology 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...
and became secretary to the Anthropological Society of New South Wales. Between 1933 and 1936 she received grants from the Australian National Research Council
Australian Research Council
The Australian Research Council is the Australian Government’s main agency for allocating research funding to academics and researchers in Australian universities. Its mission is to advance Australia’s capacity to undertake research that brings economic, social and cultural benefit to the...
to work among the Arrernte people
Arrernte people
The Arrernte people , known in English as the Aranda or Arunta, are those Indigenous Australians who are the original custodians of Arrernte lands in the central area of Australia around Mparntwe or Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. The Arrernte tribe has lived there for more than 20,000 years...
near Alice Springs and the Warlpiri
Warlpiri
The Warlpiri are a group of Indigenous Australians, many of whom speak the Warlpiri language. There are 5,000–6,000 Warlpiri, living mostly in a few towns and settlements scattered through their traditional land in Australia's Northern Territory, north and west of Alice Springs...
people of the Tanami Desert
Tanami Desert
The Tanami Desert is a desert in northern Australia situated in the Northern Territory. It has a rocky terrain with small hills. The Tanami was the Northern Territory's final frontier and was not fully explored until well into the twentieth century...
. She published several papers on the Arrernte in 1933 and 1936, but, sensitive to cultural needs, refused to release her work on the Warlpiri. She also met Albert Namatjira
Albert Namatjira
Albert Namatjira , born Elea Namatjira, was an Australian artist. He was a Western Arrernte man, an Indigenous Australian of the Western MacDonnell Ranges area...
during this period and purchased two of his early paintings. The two remained friends until his death in 1959.
At this time, Pink started agitating by writing endless letters to politicians and newspapers to raise the profile and awareness of difficulties faced by Aboriginal people. She strongly criticised government officials, missionaries and pastoralists, making uncompromising demands and constant badgering of politicians which resulted in her being investigated by ASIO
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is Australia's national security service, which is responsible for the protection of the country and its citizens from espionage, sabotage, acts of foreign interference, politically-motivated violence, attacks on the Australian defence system, and...
as a communist sympathiser.
Pink lived with the remote people for several years, teaching English and other skills and including a failed attempt at establishing a 'secular sanctuary' (or commune) for the Warlpiri people, before moving to Alice Springs to live in 1946. Suffering financial difficulties she lived in huts and a tent on the outskirts of the town living off the proceeds of her home grown fruit and flowers and exhibitions of her artwork as well as a job cleaning the local courthouse. She refused the old age pension and managed to live on an income of approximately £6.00 a week.
In 1955 she applied to the Northern Territory administrator for a reservation of about 20 hectares of land on the eastern bank of the Todd River
Todd River
The Todd River is an ephemeral river in the southern Northern Territory, central Australia. The origins of the Todd River begin in the MacDonnell Ranges, where it flows past the Telegraph Station, almost through the center of Alice Springs, through Heavitree Gap at the southern end of Alice Springs...
as a flora reserve. The following year the grant was gazetted as the 'Australian Arid Regions Flora Reserve', with assistance from the Minister for the Territories, Sir Paul Hasluck
Paul Hasluck
Sir Paul Meernaa Caedwalla Hasluck KG GCMG GCVO KStJ was an Australian historian, poet, public servant and politician, and the 17th Governor-General of Australia.-Early life:...
. Pink was appointed as the 'honorary curator'.
Hasluck had considerable correspondence with Pink over many years. In the Northern Territory Newsletter obituary in 1975 he told the following story:
'At the Arid Zone reserve Miss Pink planted trees and, with the aid of her Aboriginal helper, watered them and tended them. Each tree bore the name of some prominent citizen and if that citizen fell out of favour with her she ceased to water it. So that if the leaves of 'Mr Archer' were drooping and the leaves of 'Mr Marsh' were bright and green or 'Mr Barclay' was growing vigorously one knew at once what had happened in the handling of her latest request. I visited her on several occasions and could never restrain a curious glance at my tree and felt suitably gratified if I saw that 'Mr Hasluck' was being watered regularly.'
Olive Pink lived in the reserve until her death in 1975 at the age of 91, assisted by her longtime companion and gardener, Johnny Jambijimba Yannarilyi. She died in Alice Springs Hospital and is buried in the local cemetery within the Quaker section, a group with which she held close ties throughout her life and alongside the aboriginal plots. After her death, the botanical garden she built was renamed the Olive Pink Botanic Garden and opened to the public in 1985.
A collection of Olive Pink's sketches, in pencil and crayon, is held in the University of Tasmania
University of Tasmania
The University of Tasmania is a medium-sized public Australian university based in Tasmania, Australia. Officially founded on 1 January 1890, it was the fourth university to be established in nineteenth-century Australia...
Library to whom she bequeathed most of her art collection. Several Namatjira paintings previously owned by her were bequeathed and are held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery is a museum located in Hobart, Tasmania. The museum was established in 1843, by the Royal Society of Tasmania under the leadership of Sir John Franklin, the oldest Royal Society outside of England.-Governance:...
.