Helen Ogilvie

Helen Elizabeth Ogilvie was one of the first women commercial gallery directors in Australia. She ran the Peter Bray Gallery, Melbourne from 1949-1955 showing established and emerging artists. Melbourne, was at this time according to Chris Wallace Crabbe 'A man's world ... Women belonged to another, private sphere as a rule, figuring little in our discussion..'. Ogilvie had become part of an influential arts circle and with advice from her friends Ursula Hoff, Arnold Shore and Alan McCulloch, she organised a program of exhibitions of the avant-garde. The inaugural exhibition, '21 Artists', in February 1950, included works by many new and upcoming artists. She also put on an early show of Sydney Nolan. Joseph Burke [Herald professor of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne, lecturer and major supporter of the arts in Australia] regarded Ogilvie as a 'valued acquaintance' and purchased some of his first Australian art works from her gallery. As did The National Gallery of Victoria acquiring John Brack's The Barber's Shop, 1952 and Collins Street, 5pm, 1956

Helen 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. In 1920 they moved to Melbourne where Helen attended the National Gallery School in 1922–25 and she became a member of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors and started exhibiting with them in 1924. In 1928 she took up print making after seeing a book of Claude Flight's Modernist linocuts.

After moving on from her directorship of the gallery, her own oil paintings of abandoned country structures were shown there in 1956. Examples of her work were acquired by Hoff for the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. In 1956 she moved to London, where she made a living designing modernist lampshades of Japanese papers and parchment for a period, for the clients of David Hicks. She returned to Australia in 1963 where she continued to paint the humble rural buildings which she was aware were disappearing. While many Australian artists continued to follow European and international trends, Ogilvie who had promoted the work of many innovative Australian artists preferred to devote her own work to Australian subjects, determined to create a new tradition of Australian printmaking and artistic practice.

With thanks to Dr Sheridan Palmer, Art historian and ARC Senior Research Associate, The University of Melbourne, for help with Helen Ogilivie’s bio though any errors are mine alone. See fuller bio and listing of shows etc HERE