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oil on canvas (frame: 102.0 cm x 83.0 cmdepth 3.0 cm, support: 90.0 cm x 74.5 cm)
Ola Cohn OBE (1892-1964), sculptor, was born in Bendigo and studied in Melbourne and London, where Henry Moore, her lecturer in sculpture, predicted that she would progress to make 'works of a very high order'. Returning to Australia in 1931, she established a studio in Melbourne, producing pieces based on the simple lines of ancient Mediterranean art, and gained a reputation as a potent modern artist. Between 1938 and 1941 she made two huge figures for the Royal Hobart Hospital, a memorial fountain in Bendigo, panels for the Mutual Life and Citizen's Building, Sydney, and the massive figure for the Pioneer Women's Memorial in Adelaide. She then turned to teaching, while continuing to produce sculptures for churches. Late in her career she made the fairies' tree for Melbourne's Fitzroy Gardens. Cohn's work is represented in most major Australian galleries.
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The portrait is of sculptor Ola Cohn. It was painted by Jean Goldberg in 1961. The work is oil on canvas, measuring about one metre tall by 83 cm wide in its frame. The frame is a polished red-brown timber. Ola is shown seated in the foreground with several carved figures behind her.
The style of the portrait is pared back, geometric, with minimal detail. The elements of the portrait are arranged in distinctive blocks of colour. The paint looks waxy and textured, colours blurring together, with many layers of soft markings. The space in the scene is compressed, with Ola positioned close against the background.
Behind Ola’s head is an area of muted blue-greens. On the left is a sculpted figure painted with deep blue-greens and mottled greys. It is angular and sitting side on, upright on a chair with a tall back that curves over the top of its head. Mirroring this sculpture is another on the right, painted in deep red-browns, of similarly angular entwined figures.
Ola dominates the foreground of the work, her head almost touching the top edge of the canvas, her elbows reaching to either side, resting on her red-brown chair, and her body cropped at the hips.
She has a full halo of grey hair standing up and out from her forehead, wide at the sides and short at the back. Her skin is warm yellow with a hint of green. Her head tilts slightly back, her chin up. Ola’s face is broad with arched eyebrows, wide dark eyes look towards her right, a large nose and thin closed lips. Ola wears a jacket in cerulean blue highlighted with turquoise. It has notch lapels, is closed just below the collar bones by a large pin of circular wires, and then opens down the front. The jacket has puffy sleeves, drawn in at the wrists with tight cuffs. Ola’s hands rest relaxed on the arms of her chair, her tapered fingers curving slightly inwards. Beneath her jacket she wears a garment in deep sapphire blue.
Audio description written by Lucinda Shawcross and voiced by Marina Neilson
