Lost artist Dora Ohlfsen deserves to be front and centre

A century after its design, Dora Ohlfsen’s bronze art gallery entrance relief must finally be installed.

Dora Ohlfsen’s The awakening of Australian art (1907). Art Gallery of NSW.

Immigration and expatriation are important themes in the history­ of Australian art, as they are no doubt in the history of any colonial community that develops to the point where it can eventually contribute to, or even play a significant role in, the metropolitan culture.

Australian artists began returning to London and Paris more than a century ago, but from the beginning these individuals fell into two categories. On the one hand, there were those who were able to establish themselves successfully within the artistic worlds of London or Paris, such as Rupert Bunny or Agnes Goodsir; on the other hand, there were those who had risen to prominence in Australia and were hoping to replicate their success­ on a ­bigger stage.

The first category tended to fit in with contemporary European practice, which is why they were often accepted without difficulty into artistic societies and official exhibitions. Some of them probably made a better living in Europe than they could have hoped for in Australia, and yet the price of this success was, oddly enough, to remain unknown at home.

Those who never returned, such as Agnes Goodsir, who died in Paris in 1939, were almost completely forgotten in Australia. But in Europe, too, they subsided into obscurity, for despite their­ relative professional success, they had never established themselves as leading figures or made any impact within the history of art.

Dora Ohlfsen’s Anzac in eternal remembrance (1918) [reverse].

Those who returned to Australia from time to time, especial­ly those who came home permanently later in their lives, such as Rupert Bunny and George Lambert, fared better; but if Lambert had not become an official war artist during the Great War, which led to his return from London to complete important commissions, he too might have been largely forgotten. On the other hand, those who were already stars here before trying their luck in the metropolitan centres, such as Tom Roberts­ and Arthur Streeton, fared comparatively less well out of their natural habitat. Their distinctively Australian style did not speak to the English and French, nor did it adapt very well to the different landscapes and climatic conditions they encountere­d in Europe.

Among the Australian expatriates in Europe a century ago were several women, mostly lesbians, from well-to-do ­middle-class backgrounds. Agnes Goodsir, Janet Cumbrae Stewart and others mostly chose to live in Paris, famous for its liberal ­attitude to sexuality and already home to a sapphic literary ­subculture.

Dora Ohlfsen, however, chose to live in Italy, which was rather more unusual, perhaps because well-educated Aust­ralian girls were much more likely to have learned French than Italian at school. Ohlfsen’s journey was even more exotic, however, because she had lived in Berlin while studying the piano, which she was forced to abandon after suffering what we would probably call today a repetitive strain injury.

It was during a subsequent visit to Russia that she met her lifelong companion, Russian countess Elena von Kugelgen, and together they settled in Rome in 1902. Although no longer the centre of modern art, as it had been in the High Renaissance and baroque periods, or even the centre of postgraduate art training that it had remained until the early 19th century, Rome was still the focus of a neoclassical sculptural tradition that went back to Canova and, as we can see from examples in the collection of the Art Gallery of NSW and elsewhere in Australia, was still flourishing in the Edwardian period.

Dora Ohlfsen’s Anzac in eternal remembrance (1918) (obverse).

This was, therefore, the ideal place for Ohlfsen to begin her new career as a portrait medallist. The genre goes back to the 15th century, and was inspired by the fascination of the Renaissance with ancient coins, which had preserved the portraits of so many famous Romans through centuries in which Europe had lost the art of making a likeness. The Renaissance medal portraits were much larger than ancient coins, cast in bronze, and bore the profile of their subject on the obverse, with an ­inscription, and a symbolic or allegorical image or emblem on the reverse. Thus Lionello d’Este’s portrait by Pisanello, the greatest of medallists, has an allegorical image of a lion being taught to sing by a cupid: Lionello is leonine in courage, but rendered­ gentle and harmonious by the power of love.

Ohlfsen became a very able exponent of this art. One of her early successes was The Awakening of Australian Art (1907), with an allegorical nude on the obverse and a mounted grazier watching over a flock of sheep on the reverse, symbolising the source of Australia’s prosperity. But she made her career as a portraitist, and working in Rome gave her international exposure­. Her subjects included David Lloyd George, the British prime minister (1919), and the dashing and eccentric poet, filmmaker and political agitator Gabriele d’Annunzio (1909), as well as Australian sitters such as Billy Hughes (1921).

She was thus socially well-connected and during the Great War had the support of several important establishment figures — as we can see from the correspondence included in the exhibition — in the medal she designed to raise funds for maimed and disabled soldiers. The original design appears to have been completed­ in 1916 and bears the date 1915-16, while the final ­version, editioned after the war, is dated 1914-18. The Anzac ­medallion, like the Awakening, differs from portrait medals in having an allegorical scene on the obverse: a ­female figure crowning with laurel the head of a dead or gravely wounded young man. On the reverse is the profile of a soldier ­holding a rifle and looking out with a tense expression, poised for battle.

Ohlfsen in front of her Formia war memorial in 1926. Photograph by Adolfo Porry-Pastorel. Art Gallery of NSW.

After the war, Ohlfsen continued to enjoy success in Italy and became increasingly close to the new Fascist regime, perhaps introduced through her acquaintance with d’Annunzio, the inventor of Fascist chic who later unsuccessfully counselled the younger Benito Mussolini against aligning himself with Hitler. Mussolini seems to have had a bit of an inferiority complex about the internationally famous d’Annunzio, but in any case he too had a portrait medal executed by Ohlfsen, of which the Dora Ohlfsen Archive has a plaster cast signed by the Duce, with the inscription “per aspera ad astra’’ (through hardship to the stars), (1925). By a curious coincidence, it seems Goodsir was also commissioned to paint Mussolini’s portrait but it is unclear whether this was ­actually carried out or subsequently lost.

Ohlfsen’s most important commission for the Italian government was also the largest work that she ever accomplished, the war memorial at Formia, where Cicero was assassinated leaving his villa in 43BC; it greatly pleased Mussolini and still stands today. It is a remarkably confident, large-scale figure sculpture for someone who had always worked on a small scale and in low relief — comparable, in a more modest way, to Benvenuto Cellini’s sculpting of the colossal Perseus when he was best known as a jeweller and miniature sculptor.

Her connections and reputation in Australia suffered as a ­result of her closeness to the Fascists, especially during the years before and during WWII, and her position in Italy itself must have become much less comfortable or even secure with the fall of Mussolini. ­Whether for such reasons or for more personal ones, she and her companion appear to have taken their lives­ ­together by gassing in their studio in via San Nicolo da Tolen­tino in 1948.

None of this, however, could have been a factor in her experience with the Art Gallery of NSW (then the National Gallery of NSW) in 1918-19. It was presumably following her patriotic and philanthropic Anzac medallion project that Ohlfsen was commissione­d by the trustees to execute a bronze relief destined to go over the new entrancer to the gallery building.

The design, of a chariot race, was submitted in 1918, although it seems that funds were lacking to carry out the bronze casting, which would have been done in Rome under her supervision. Eventually Ohlfsen provided a plaster cast, suggesting that it could be painted to look like bronze as a temporary measure. Then,for some reason that remains unclear , the commission was cancelled in 1919. Perhaps the trustees were simply not happy with the design, although it is hard to see why.

Although in some respects a fairly predictable example of what might be called late art nouveau or early art deco classicism, it is a vigorous scene and, with the two central chariots framed by one coming towards us and ­the other turning away, it evokes the excitement of the turning-point of the race.

Ohlfsen’s original photograph of the cast is on display, as well as a fragment digitally reproduced in 3D by Andrew Yip, showing that the intended relief could be reconstituted. A photographic copy has been installed in full size in the niche above the gallery entrance, confirming that Ohlfsen’s work would be quite effect­ive if this were done.

The exhibition, however, includes several other proposals for the niche, none of which is satisfactory. The most appealing is composed of abstract Islamic patterns but would have little relevance­ to the site. One of the silliest is by Julie Rrap, made up of reproductions of the legs of what are described as “favourite sculptures in the collection”; whose favourites they are is unclear, and the idea itself, while trivial, is duly loaded with ideological ­intentions in the label.

Another particularly egregious piece reminds one of nothing so much as a high-school girl’s HSC project, laden with ill-­digested feminist references — not even sparing us dripping blood — combined into an embarrassingly simplistic compos­ition. The attempt to link the fascist suffragette who slashed the Rokeby Venus with Dora Ohlfsen is particularly implausible.

Whatever one thinks of the artistic merit of Ohlfsen’s frieze, it is better than any of these and has the advantage of fitting the ethos and style of the building, matching the other sculptures on and around the facade and, of course, being a part of the history of the building. Its theme, too, is neutral and universal; this is not the place for modish and ephemeral themes or partisan ideology.

The exhibition suggests the most sensible thing to do is to commission a reconstruction of the lost relief and install it as ­intended. It would be a pity for all this work to have been done only to permit some contemporary opportunist to reap an undeserved reward; unless of course the trustees intend to repeat the affront of 1919 and reinter a notable woman artist in ­obscurity.

Dora Ohlfsen and the Facade Commission

Art Gallery of NSW, until March 2020