Cohn, Carola (Ola) (1892 - 1964)

Educated at Girton College (Bendigo) Ola Cohn became an Associate of the Royal College of Art (London). Cohn carved the Fairies Tree for the children of Melbourne from 1931 to 1934. Also she created the statue for the Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden in Adelaide South Australia. Examples of Ola Cohn's work in bronze and freestone are in most state and provincial galleries. Cohn was awarded the Crouch Prize at Ballarat for her woodcarving Abraham in 1952. A year later, aged 61, she married Herbert John Green, the retired Victorian Government Printer. Ola Cohn was appointed a Member of the British Empire, for her services rendered in the service of art, especially sculpture on 1 January 1965. Her studio, 41 Gipps Street, East Melbourne - a former Cobb and Co. coach house and stables, and a collection of her works were bequeathed to the Council of Education (now the Ola Cohn Memorial Centre).

• Green, Ola (married name, 6 May 1953 - )

Chronology

1910 - 1919	Attended art classes at the Bendigo School of Mines
1920 - 1925	Studied at Swinburne Technical College, Melbourne
1921	Member of the Victorian Art Society
1922 - 1964	Member of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors
1926	Carved Head of a Virgin, now in the National Gallery of Victoria, which was considered very modern in Australia at the time
1926	Attended the Royal College of Art, London where her lecturers included Henry Moore for sculpture
1928	Awarded a Royal College of Art, London free studentship
1929	Became an associate of the Royal College of Art, London
1930	Established a studio at 9 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria
1931 - 1934	Carved The Fairies' Tree in the Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne
March 1931	Held an exhibition of her overseas work
1933	Taught art at Geelong Church of England Grammar School
1937	Moved to 41 Gipps Street, East Melbourne where she made her studio a centre for artists
1938	Produced two seven-foot (2.1m) sandstone figures, representing Science and Humanity, for the Royal Hobart Hospital, Tasmania
1939	Executed 19 panels for the Mutual Life and Citizens Building, Sydney New South Wales - 14 were designed by Murray Griffen
1940 - 1941	Carved the limestone Pioneer Woman memorial statue, Adelaide
1940 - 1954	Part-time lecturer in art at the Melbourne Kindergarten Teacher's College
1948	Won the Roman Catholic Diocesan Centenary Prize in Melbourne
1948 - 1964	President of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors
1949 - 1951	Travelled to Europe and Iceland
1952	Won the Crouch Prize - the first time it had been won by a sculptor - for a wood carving
6 May 1953	Married Herbert John Green, retired government printer
1 January 1964	Appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services rendered in the service of art, especially sculpture

Membership

• Lyceum Club (Melbourne) (1912 - )

Presided

• The Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors (1902 - )

  [1950 - 1964]

Related Cultural Artefacts

• Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden

Books

• Cohn, Ola, More about the Fairies' Tree, O. Cohn, Melbourne, 1933, 39 pp. [ Details... ]
• Cohn, Ola, Castles in the Air, East Melbourne, 1936, 48 pp. [ Details... ]
• Cohn, Ola, Mostly Cats, Melbourne, 1964, 53 pp. [ Details... ]
• Cohn, Ola; Davies, Norman (collaboration with); Wood, Marjorie (illustrations and decorations by) and King, Tom (music by), The Fairies' Tree, H. Tatlock Miller, Geelong [Vic.], 1932, 62 pp. [ Details... ]
• Delander, Sonja and Buckingham, Rick (photography by), Ola Cohn's Fairies Tree, Mullaya, Canterbury, Vic., 1972, 28 pp. [ Details... ]

Book Sections

• Scarlett, Ken, 'Cohn, Carola (1892 - 1964)', in Nairn, Bede and Serle, Geoffrey (eds), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria, 1981, pp. 59-60. [ Details... ]
• Welch, Maureen and Kruger, Lois; Kearney, Verna (graphics and editing); Errington, Helen (poster artwork and production), 'Brushing the dust off', Equal Opportunity Resource Centre, Melbourne, [1990], p. 30. [ Details... ]

Catalogues

• Cohn, Ola, Ola Cohn 1982-1964: Sculpture, Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo, Vic., <16> pp. [ Details... ]

Online Resources

• 'Ola Cohn', in Australian Women's Art Register, Richmond (formerly Carringbush) Library, http://yarranet.net.au/womar/stat2.htm. [ Details... ]
• Cohn, Ian and Sue, 'Notable Forebears and Relatives', in Ian and Susan Cohn Homepage, Ian and Susan Cohn, 8 November 1998, http://members.ozemail.com.au/~scsiac/. [ Details... ]

See also

• 'Women artists still call Ola Cohn Centre home', The Age, The Culture, 12 June 2002, p. 6. [ Details... ]
• '$100,000 gift to help restore artists' centre', The Age, 10 June 2002, p. 4. [ Details... ]
• 'Artists allowed to stay in sculptor's house', The Age, 04 June 2002, p. 7. [ Details... ]
• Alexander, Joseph A (ed.), Who's who in Australia 1962, 17 edn, Colorgravure Publications, Melbourne, 1962, 960 pp. [ Details... ]
• Backhouse, Megan, 'Ola Cohn's house and studio still in question', The Age, The Culture, 05 June 2002, p. 6. [ Details... ]
• Kerr, Joan (ed.), Heritage : the national women's art book, 500 works by 500 Australian women artists from colonial times to 1955, Craftsman House, Roseville East, NSW, 1995, 483 pp. [ Details... ]
• Ketchell, Misha, 'Melbourne painters prepare to fight', The Age, 13 May 2002, p. 5. [ Details... ]
• McManus, Bridget, 'Carved magic at the bottom of the gardens', The City Weekly, no. 3, 2003, 2003, p. 7. [ Details... ]
• Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, The Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, http://home.vicnet.net.au/~mswps/. [ Details... ]
• Peers, Juliet, More Than Just Gumtress: A Personal, Social and Artistic History of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, Melbourne, 1993, 308 pp. [ Details... ]
• Radi, Heather (ed.), 200 Australian Women: A Redress Anthology, Women's Press, Sydney, [1988], 258 pp. (Also available at http://www.200australianwomen.com/) [ Details... ]