image of person or book cover 1645396121475809908.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon Olive Cotton : A Life in Photography single work   biography  
Issue Details: First known date: 2019... 2019 Olive Cotton : A Life in Photography
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'A landmark biography of a singular and important Australian photographer, Olive Cotton, by an award-winning writer - beautifully written and deeply moving.

'Olive Cotton was one of Australia's pioneering modernist photographers, a woman whose talent was recognised as equal to her first husband's, Max Dupain, and a significant artist in her own right. Together, Olive and Max could have been Australia's answer to Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, or Ray and Charles Eames. The photographic work they produced during the 1930s and '40s was extraordinary and distinctively their own.

'But in the early 1940s Cotton quit their marriage and Sydney studio to live with second husband Ross McInerney and raise their two children in a tent on a farm near Cowra - later moving to a hut that had no running water, electricity or telephone. Despite these barriers, and not having access to a darkroom, Olive continued her photography but away from the public eye. Then a landmark exhibition in Sydney in 1985 shot her back to fame, followed by a major retrospective at the AGNSW in 2000. Australian photography would never be same.

'This is a moving and powerful story about talent, creativity and women, and about what it means for an artist to manage the competing demands of art, work, marriage, children and family.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Pymble, Turramurra - Pymble - St Ives area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Fourth Estate , 2019 .
      image of person or book cover 1645396121475809908.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 496p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 21 October 2019.

      ISBN: 9781460758342, 146075834X

Works about this Work

'Drawing with Light' : A Compelling Biography of Olive Cotton Alison Stieven-Taylor , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , January / February no. 418 2020; (p. 22-23)

— Review of Olive Cotton : A Life in Photography Helen Ennis , 2019 single work biography
'A lover of photography since childhood, by the time Olive Cotton, who was born in Sydney in 1911, was in her twenties she was already creating the pictures that were to define her as one of Australia’s foremost women photographers, although this would not be acknowledged until the 1980s. Apart from the photographs she made, Cotton left little material trace of a life that spanned nine decades (she died in 2003). This lack of physical evidence presented a challenge for biographer Helen Ennis, a former curator of photography at the National Gallery of Australia and an art historian, who has nonetheless managed to weave a compelling, if at times diaphanous, narrative.' (Introduction)
Life’s Work in a Trunk of Treasure Patricia Anderson , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 21 December 2019; (p. 16)

— Review of Olive Cotton : A Life in Photography Helen Ennis , 2019 single work biography

'By default, a sound biography becomes a potted ­history of the decades of its setting. It is also a record of the fading and flourishing mindsets, fashions and technologies of the time. Readers of a certain generation will fondly recall the Kodak Box Brownie camera with its convex rectangular window and the concentrated delight of collecting a modest, brown-paper envelope of photos from the local chemist a few days later. The black-and-white results were more often than not lopsided, out of focus and sometimes cut off people’s heads.' (Introduction) 

'Drawing with Light' : A Compelling Biography of Olive Cotton Alison Stieven-Taylor , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , January / February no. 418 2020; (p. 22-23)

— Review of Olive Cotton : A Life in Photography Helen Ennis , 2019 single work biography
'A lover of photography since childhood, by the time Olive Cotton, who was born in Sydney in 1911, was in her twenties she was already creating the pictures that were to define her as one of Australia’s foremost women photographers, although this would not be acknowledged until the 1980s. Apart from the photographs she made, Cotton left little material trace of a life that spanned nine decades (she died in 2003). This lack of physical evidence presented a challenge for biographer Helen Ennis, a former curator of photography at the National Gallery of Australia and an art historian, who has nonetheless managed to weave a compelling, if at times diaphanous, narrative.' (Introduction)
Life’s Work in a Trunk of Treasure Patricia Anderson , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 21 December 2019; (p. 16)

— Review of Olive Cotton : A Life in Photography Helen Ennis , 2019 single work biography

'By default, a sound biography becomes a potted ­history of the decades of its setting. It is also a record of the fading and flourishing mindsets, fashions and technologies of the time. Readers of a certain generation will fondly recall the Kodak Box Brownie camera with its convex rectangular window and the concentrated delight of collecting a modest, brown-paper envelope of photos from the local chemist a few days later. The black-and-white results were more often than not lopsided, out of focus and sometimes cut off people’s heads.' (Introduction) 

Last amended 15 Nov 2021 11:39:54
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