Helen Ogilvie

William Pate (c.1930–39) Portrait drawing of Helen Ogilvie, in Anne Montgomery's studio in the Rialto Building, Collins Street. Collection of the State Library of Victoria Helen Elizabeth Ogilvie (4 May 1902, in Corowa – 1 August 1993, in Melbourne) was a twentieth-century Australian artist and gallery director, illustrator, painter, printmaker and craftworker, best known for her early linocuts and woodcuts, and her later oil paintings of vernacular colonial buildings.

Early life and education Helen Elizabeth Ogilvie was born 4 May 1902 in Corowa and grew up in surrounding rural New South Wales where she would go sketching with her mother, Henrietta, a watercolourist, before her family moved to Melbourne in 1920. There Helen attended the National Gallery School in 1922–25 though she did not enjoy its conservative approach and prescriptive teaching methods. In her last year her style was influenced by George Bell while he briefly was the drawing master. While at the school she became a member of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors and started exhibiting in 1924. Ogilvie produced many linocuts and woodcuts from the 1930s onwards. Her work in a 1932 group show is praised, with that of other exhibitors, for skills in cutting and "an intimate artistic facility for illustrative design". She focussed on subject matter familiar to her, including farm animals, rural landscapes and Australian flora and fauna. Curator Sheridan Palmer in the catalogue for a 1995 Art Gallery of Ballarat retrospective described her as;

Nevertheless, her work, especially her printmaking, has since enjoyed a renewed interest and reevaluation, and has featured in seven major surveys of Australian women's art (see section 'Posthumous exhibitions', below). 1956, April: Paintings, Peter Bray Gallery, Melbourne 1967, March: Leicester Galleries, Audley Sq., Mayfair, London 1967, October: Helen Ogilvie Paintings, Leveson Street Gallery, North Melbourne 1968, September: joint solo with David Rose, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney 1970, 15-26 October: "Australian Country Buildings" Leveson Street Gallery 1972, from 3 May: Macquarie Galleries (joint solo with Nancy Borlase) 1974, 2–13 June: Leveson Street Gallery, Melbourne. 1979, 11–30 July: solo alongside Trevor Weekes and Denese Oates, Macquarie Galleries 1982, 1 October – 31 October: Project 39: Women's imprint, part of Women and the Arts Festival, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales 1991, May 1991: Australian Girls Own Gallery, Canberra, ACT

Group 1924, 18–27 November: An Exhibition Of Etchings & Drawings, with Hans Heysen, John D. Moor, Lionel Lindsay, John Goodchild, John L. Berry, Frank H. Molony, R. J. Waterhouse, Fred. C. Britten, Lloyd Rees, d’A. Boxall, J. Barclay Godson, Arthur Reed, H. Van Raake, B. E. Minns, Harold D. Herbert, James S. MacDonald, Norman Carter, Thea Proctor, Alfred T. Clint, Margaret Preston, A. Henry Fullwood, Raymond H. McGrath, Don Finley, Hamilton Mack, Adrian Feint, F. M. Grey, Montague White, Audrey Hardy, K. Sauerbier, Professor Leslie Wilkinson, Hardy Wilson, Daryl Lindsay, Sydney Ure Smith. Exhibition Hall, Sixth Floor, Farmer & Company, department store, cnr. Pitt, Market & George Streets, Sydney 1932, 5–16 April: with Sybil Andrews, Cyril Power, Ethel Spowers, Eveline Syme, Eric Thake, John Dick, Christian Waller, Dorrit Block, Ron Meadows, Marjorie Wood, Michael O’Connell. Everyman's Library, 332 Collins Street 1932, to 29 October: Helen Ogilvie, Peggie Crombie, Helen Boyd, paintings and prints. Collins House, Melbourne. 1933: New Melbourne Art Club exhibition, Sedon Galleries, Melbourne 1933, 16–23 October: The Arts and Crafts Society Annual Exhibition, Melbourne Town Hall 1934, The centenary art exhibition, Commonwealth Bank Chambers, 367 Collins Street, Melbourne. 1936: Painter-Etchers and Graphic Art Society of Australia, David Jones Art Gallery 1936, 14–25 July: New Melbourne Art Club exhibition, Athenaeum Gallery 1937, from 12 July: New Melbourne Art Club exhibition, Athenaeum Gallery 1949, 5 – 13 November: Fern Tree Gully Arts Society, Sixth annual exhibition. 1953, October: Flowerdale CWA annual exhibition 1954, November: Helen Ogilvie, Tate Adams, Kenneth Hood, Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1954: with Braund, Blackman, Brack, Shannon, Nine Victorian Artists, Peter Bay Gallery. 1956, June: with Dorothy Braund, Barbara Brash, Guelda Pyke, Roma Thomson, Phyl Waterhouse, and six male artists, Paintings for Seven Guineas, Peter Bray Gallery 1958: Crouch Prize exhibition, Art Gallery of Ballarat 1964, August: with Lady Williams (President) Geoff Jones, Guelda Pyke, Edith Wall, Bill Coleman, Dorothy Braund, Guelda Gude, Madge Freeman-Davis, and others of the Melbourne Contemporary Artists, Argus Gallery 1965, 28 February-11 March: Leveson Street Art Gallery, corner of Leveson and Victoria Streets, North Melbourne 1974, March 3–21: Leveson Street Art Gallery, corner of Leveson and Victoria Streets, North Melbourne 1974, 26 September: Association for the Blind – Springfield Art Show 1975, 7 November-23 November: Deutsher Galleries opening exhibition – a collection of 19th & 20th century European & Australian paintings, drawings & graphics 1977, April 2: Exhibition marking the opening of 'Important Women Artists Gallery', 13 Emo Road, Malvern East, Victoria 1978, 1 April-7 May: Cicadas and gumnuts – The Society of Arts and Crafts 1906–1935, Art Gallery of New South Wales 1979, 16 February-4 March: inaugural exhibition Murray Crescent Galleries, 35 Murray Crescent, Manuka, Australian Capital Territory 1980, 21–23 November: Ogilvie works included amongst 600 items purchased for the National Gallery of Victoria by the Gallery Society from 1949–1980 which were offered for sale at an Art Mart, Caulfield Arts Centre. 1981/2, Nov. 1981 – Jan. 1982: with Christopher Croft, Janet Dawson, Ruth Faerber, Dusan Marek, Clifton Pugh, Lloyd Rees, Udo Sellbach, Michael Shannon, Guy Warren. Tasmania visited, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. 1982, 27 November-5 December: Artbank purchase exhibition held in conjunction with the Victorian Artists' Society 1990, 9–24 December: Christmas exhibition, Jester Press Gallery, 178 Bridport Street, Albert Park

Posthumous Solo 1995: All this I knew, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Ballarat, VIC. and travelling 1995/6, 15 December – 14 January: Helen Ogilvie Retrospective, McClelland Art Gallery, Langwarrin

Inclusions in 1995, 5 March – 30 April: Australian Women Printmakers 1910–1940, Castlemaine Art Museum, Castlemaine, VIC 1995, 8 March – 2 April: The Women's View: Australian women artists in the Bendigo Art Gallery, 1888–1995, Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo, Vic 1995, 8 March – 8 June: National Women's Art Exhibition, with Speaking of Women, four guest lectures; by Nancy Underhill, Ann Thomson, Margo Neale, Joan Kerr; held over successive Fridays, 10–31 March 1995, by the Art Gallery Society, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 1995, 4 August – 5 August: Women and Art auction preview for Dalia Stanley Auctioneers, auction held 6 August 1995, Mary Place Gallery, Paddington, NSW 2000/1, 24 November 2000 – 25 February 2001: Modern Australian Women: paintings and prints 1925–1945, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, SA. Then national tour. 2002, June/July: Journeys, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery 2011/12 10 December 2011 to 4 February 2012: Australian works on paper, Josef Lebovic Gallery, Kensington 2011/12, 20 October 2011 – 15 December 2012: Look, Look Again , highlights from the Cruthers Collection of Women's Art (CCWA), gifted to the University of Western Australia in 2007, with publication titled Into the Light and symposium Are we there yet?. Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA 2019, 18 May – 4 August: Becoming Modern : Australian women artists 1920–1950, Art Gallery of Ballarat Benalla Art Gallery, Benalla, VIC City of Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Ballarat, VIC University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, VIC National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, VIC National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia Queensland Art Gallery Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne, VIC Cruthers Collection of Women's Art at the University of Western Australia

Publications illustrated by

Publications about

Munk, Frances (1994), "The Prints of Helen Ogilvie", Postgraduate Diploma thesis, University of Melbourne.