Born: 1892 Bendigo, Australia
Died: 1964 Cowes, Australia
Year of Migration to the UK: 1926
Other name/s: Carola Cohn
Biography
Sculptor Ola (Carola) Cohn was born in Bendigo, Australia to Julius Cohn, a Jewish-Danish brewer, and his wife Sarah Helen, née Snowball on 25 April 1892. Cohn developed an interest in the arts at an early age and attended art classes at the Bendigo School of Mines (1910–19). She later studied under sculptor J. R. Tranthin Fryer at Swinburne Technical College, Melbourne (1920–25). Here she was trained to model from life or memory and encouraged by Fryer to exhibit her work and to become a member of the Victoria Artists Society. Cohn’s work was praised in the press and she subsequently began receiving private commissions.
Despite this early success, she felt a need to further her artistic education and in 1926 she set sail for England with her sister Franziska. Upon her arrival in London, Cohn contacted Australian artist Dora Meeson, to whom women artists new to the city often turned for assistance. Cohn was eager to meet Meeson and her husband, the painter George Coates, and managed to arrange a visit only two weeks after her arrival. She and her sister enjoyed seeing their studio and work in progress and found both welcoming (Woollacott 2001, p. 81). The sisters lodged in a guest house in Earl's Court where other Australians lived, including the sculptor Barbara Tribe. In her memoir, Cohn described her boarding house as a relaxed establishment in which the residents would commonly spend evenings in each other's company, even into the small hours (Woollacott 2001, p. 87).
In the same year Cohn entered the Royal College of Art (RCA), where she trained under Professor Ernest Cole and Henry Moore, the latter then a junior member of the sculpture faculty. The five years she spent in London were enormously influential on a personal and professional level. She was introduced to the work of important sculptors, such as August Rodin, Aristide Maillol, and Jacob Epstein, and during the term holidays travelled extensively throughout Europe and the UK, observing art and architecture. Cohn later revealed the impact that Moore had on her: 'Once he said to me: ‘Cohn, do you realise that sculpture is not flesh and blood? It is carved image in stone, wood, or other strong media. Abstract or otherwise, it must contain that living force that makes the creation vibrate with life’’ (Woollacott 2001, p. 210). During classes, students could not seek inspiration from Greek sculpture, as Moore and Cole had removed all the plaster casts from the college, so that Cohn and her peers could not be influenced by historical works. In this way, they were encouraged to make contemporary works representative of their own time. Cohn’s training at the RCA was intense; her classes included life drawing, the study of architecture, often on sites around London, and attendance at contemporary sculpture exhibitions. She also studied bronze casting at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, wood carving in South Kensington, and Egyptian, Assyrian and archaic Greek sculpture at the British Museum. In 1928 she was awarded a RCA free studentship. In 1929 she was made an associate of the RCA and contributed the ‘vigorous’ bronze Comedy to the Society of Women Artists’ Exhibition at the Royal Institute Galleries, which was singled out in The Graphic (23 February 1929, p. 286). Her work was also exhibited by the Royal Society of Artists, the Women’s International Art Club and by Australia House. In England she produced some of her most celebrated works, including Head of a Virgin (1926, National Gallery of Victoria) and the Portland stone carving of Mother Earth which today kneels before her ashes which are buried at her East Melbourne home. Toward the end of her time in London, she visited the carved Elfin Oak in Kensington Gardens, which inspired her to create her most well-known work, The Fairies’ Tree in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne (1931–34).
Cohn returned to Melbourne in 1931, bringing with her almost two tons of sculpture. In Australia she produced pieces in stone, wood, terracotta and bronze, inspired by the simple lines of ancient Mediterranean art. In 1931 her first solo exhibition established her as a leading modernist sculptor in her homeland. Cohn held the position of President of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors (MSWPS) for nearly 40 years (1948–64), and was a part-time lecturer in Art at the Melbourne Kindergarten Teachers' College from 1940–54. In 1964 she was appointed OBE for services to art, especially sculpture. Ola Cohn died in Cowes, Australia on 23 December 1964. Currently her work is not represented in any UK public collections.
Related books
- Angela Woollacott, To Try Her Fortune in London: Australian Women, Colonialism, and Modernity (Oxford University Press, 2001)
- Ola Cohn 1892-1964: Sculpture, exhibition catalogue (Bendigo Art Gallery, 1983)
- Ken Scarlett, 'Cohn, Carola (Ola) (1892–1964)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 8 (1981)
- 'Around the Art Shows', The Graphic, Vol. 123, 23 February 1929, p. 286
Public collections
Related organisations
- Central School of Arts and Crafts (student)
- Melbourne Kindergarten Teachers' College (lecturer) (lecturer)
- Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors (president)
- Royal College of Art (student and associate) (student and associate)
- Swinburne Technical College, Melbourne (student)
Related web links
- Barbara Lemon, ‘Folk of the Fairies’ Tree Sculptor Ola Cohn, M.B.E’
- Ola Cohn's biography on Australia Art Gallery
- Ola Cohn's biography on Design & Art Australia Online
- Ola Cohn, Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors
- Ola Cohn, The Australian Women’s Register
- Podcast 'The Word in the Stone: Sculptor Ola Cohn', ABC Radio National
- Walter Yago, ‘Ola Cohn at Work’, Australian Home Beautiful, 1 September 1939, pp. 25-27
Selected exhibitions
- Society of Women Artists, Royal Institute Galleries, London (1929)
- Australia House, London (tbc)
- Royal Society of Artists, London (tbc)
- Women’s International Art Club, London (tbc)
