Marian Ellis Rowan (30 July 18484 October 1922), known as Ellis Rowan, was a well-known Australian artist and
botanical illustrator
Botanical illustration is the art of depicting the form, color, and details of plant species, frequently in watercolor paintings. They must be scientifically accurate but often also have an artistic component and may be printed with a botanical ...
. She also did a series of illustrations on birds, butterflies and insects.
Life
Marian, the daughter of Marian and Charles Ryan, principal of stock agents Ryan and Hammond, was born at "Killeen" near
Longwood, Victoria
Longwood is a town in northern Victoria, Australia. The town is located in the Shire of Strathbogie local government area, from the state capital, Melbourne. At the , Longwood had a population of 263.
History
Longwood was first located on the ...
, one of her father's pastoral stations in Victoria. Her family was well-connected: sister Ada Mary married Admiral Lord Charles Scott, son of the
Duke of Buccleuch
Duke of Buccleuch (pronounced ), formerly also spelt Duke of Buccleugh, is a title in the Peerage of Scotland created twice on 20 April 1663, first for James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth and second suo jure for his wife Anne Scott, 4th Cou ...
; brother Sir Charles Ryan was a noted Melbourne surgeon and for a time Turkish consul in London (and whose daughter became Baroness Casey). Another niece was
Joice NanKivell Loch
Joice NanKivell Loch Member of the Order of the British Empire, MBE (24 January 18878 October 1982) was an Australian author, journalist and humanitarian worker who worked with refugees in Poland, Greece and Romania after World War I and World W ...
.Jane Cadzow, "Pick of the bunch", ''The Age'', 19 October 2002, Good Weekend, p. 39
She was educated at Miss Murphy's private school in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
, and in 1873 married Captain Charles Rowan, who had fought in the New Zealand wars. Her husband was interested in
botany
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...
and he encouraged her to paint wild flowers. She had had no training but working conscientiously and carefully in water-colour; her work is noted for being botanically informative as well as artistic. Rowan returned to Melbourne in 1877, and for many years travelled in Australia painting the flora of the country, at times in the company of her painting companion,
Margaret Forrest
Margaret Elvire Forrest, Lady Forrest (née Hamersley; 22 October 1844 – 13 June 1929 in Picton, Bunbury) was the wife of Sir John Forrest.
Personal life
Born in Le Havre, France, she was a member of the prominent and wealthy Hamersley ...
. Rowan exhibited her work at the
Palace of Fine Arts
The Palace of Fine Arts is a monumental structure located in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, originally constructed for the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition to exhibit works of art. Completely rebuilt from 1964 to ...
at the 1893
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordi ...
in Chicago, Illinois. She published in 1898 ''A Flower-Hunter in Queensland and New Zealand'', largely based on letters to her husband and friends.
About this time she went to North America and provided the illustrations, many in colour, to ''A Guide to the Wild Flowers'', by
Alice Lounsberry
Alice Lounsberry (6 November 1868 – 21 November 1949, both in New York City) was an American botanist and author active in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (Some sources give her birth year as 1872.) She worke ...
, published in New York in 1899 as well as ''Guide to the Trees'' (1900), and ''Southern Wild Flowers and Trees'' (1901) also by Lounsberry. It was while in America, travelling with Lounsberry, that Rowan received news that her son Eric had been killed in the
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...
. In 1905 she held a successful exhibition in London. She returned to Australia and held exhibitions of her work which sold at comparatively high prices. In 1916 she made a trip to
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu
Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea).
It is a simplified version of ...
, the first of several during which she produced a huge volume of illustrations. She contracted
malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...
during these journeys. In 1920 she held the largest solo exhibition seen in Australia at the time, when she exhibited 1000 of her works in Sydney. She died at
Macedon
Macedonia (; grc-gre, Μακεδονία), also called Macedon (), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by ...
, Victoria, her husband and her only son having predeceased her. Her husband died of pneumonia in 1892, aged 47. Her son died of nephritis in Africa, aged 22, while in jail awaiting trial on charges of forgery).
Other books by Rowan published in Australia were ''
Bill Baillie
William David Baillie (28 May 1934 – 25 December 2018) was a New Zealand runner, who represented his country at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. There, he placed sixth in the 5000 m. He also competed at the 1954, 1958, 1962, and 1966 Briti ...
, his Life and Adventures'', ''The Queensland Flora'', and ''Sketches in Black and White in New Zealand''.
Several accounts of her career have been published including:
*''Australia's Brilliant Daughter Ellis Rowan: Artist, Naturalist, Explorer 1848–1922'' (1984) by
Margaret Hazzard
Margaret Hazzard (Ivy Margaret Hazzard) 1910 – 19 January 1987 was an Australian author born in Hertfordshire, England.
Hazzard immigrated to Melbourne, Australia in 1960 and established a career as a freelance writer, publishing in The Sydney ...
.
*''Flower Paintings of Ellis Rowan from the Collection of the National Library of Australia'' (1982) by M. Hazzard and H. Hewson.
*''Ellis Rowan: A Flower-Hunter in Queensland'' (1990) by J. McKay.
*''The Flower Hunter: Ellis Rowan'' (2002) by Patricia Fullerton.
*''Wild Flower Hunter—the story of Ellis Rowan'' (1961) by her niece, H. J. (Helen Jo) Samuel.
The Australian Club in Melbourne, one of that city's oldest and most venerable establishments, has a room with the walls entirely covered in murals by her, painted as a result of a commission from the Club.
Despite winning several gold medals judged by international artists against some of Australia's leading male artists, a disdain for her ability, artistry, and capacity due to her gender resulted in a bias against her art that lasted decades. Her art was housed in the National Library, not the National Gallery.
National Library of Australia - Rowan Collection
In 1923, a year after her death, her surviving collection of 952 paintings was offered to the Australian government by her estate. The offer was debated in the House of Representatives. Parliament eventually agreed on a price of 5000 pounds for the paintings, half the asking price, and they became the property of the Australian Commonwealth. The collection was stored in the vaults of the Federal Treasury in Melbourne until 1933, when custody was transferred to the Commonwealth National Library, and to date, the major purchase by the Australian government had either been mostly hidden from public view, or her art was farmed out to overseas government offices. The remaining 919 paintings are now housed at the
National Library of Australia
The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...
. Rowan's Memorial portrait is also here.
Queensland Museum Collection
The Queensland Museum's collection of 125 botanical paintings by Ellis Rowan has been in accessible to the public for almost half a century. By 1912, her collection was taken from the old Brisbane Town Hall to the Queensland Museum after Rowan's victorious Exhibition.
1. Painting techniques
Ellis Rowan painted most of her
Queensland
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, nickname = Sunshine State
, image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, established_ ...
paintings indoor, she always worked into the night to drawn plants that she collected on her journey. On the other hand, Ellis was a rapid and direct painter who made her botanical paintings outdoor, which usually without the under-drawing of the pencil. She painted and traveled with her curiosity and personal interests, and she did not intend to be a serious botanical illustrator. She wrote of her Queensland Paintings:
'The collection is painted with a view of showing the general public how the flowers grow with their surroundings—while they are all botanically correct you cannot in the one drawing make a picture of the flower and also show it scientifically drawn in sections which is quite a different study.'
Ellis desired to make artistic compositions, which generally represented with bold close-up form. The colorful and vivid flora painted by her were not in the conventional way but placed in the varies native habitats, extending beyond the picture frame. It is said that her composition was influenced by the Thornton's ''Temple of Flora''. Ellis sometimes added insects and even snakes to her artworks, like some of Thornton's artists, in order to achieve the dramatic effect.
Claiming herself a self-taught painter, Ellis combined traditional watercolor techniques with opaque paints that she used to illustrate detail. She produced multiple copies of her paintings, and this non-professional and peculiar practice resulted in the difficulty of classifying the quantity of her output.
2. Plants
For today's botanists, Ellis Rowan's painting has limited scientific research value because they are lacking the critical details that is necessary for the botanical illustrations. However, these flora drawings are accurate and clear enough to help people identify most of the plants she drew. Although Ellis confessed that she knew very little about plants, she maintained her passion and love to discovering the botanical world, dried many specimens as her collections.
In the early year of her career, there was the trend that depicting the flower or fruit as an isolated part or branch, but her later career showed a change which was inclined to put plants in their own environment rather than in a studio-like space. Ellis created her botanical world more than paint every detail of her observation. There are some ‘new species’ plants created by Ellis, which often added one part of a plant to another, the most surprisingly, the arrangement of these different types plants presented a pleasing combination.
There is another reason why Ellis’ paintings are not strong enough to be called the scientific illustration. It seems that Ellis had her own taste when she choosing the object, which resulted in the limitation of botanical species in her painting. She preferred colorful and showy species rather than many small-flowered herbaceous species, for example, waterlilies were her most favorite flowers, and there was no depicting of the large and significant sunflower family in her artworks.
3. Animals
In spite of the spectacular botanical paintings, Ellis Rowan is also good at depicting animals and insects. The series about New Guinea bird and butterfly drawings are her major exploration into animal paintings. One-third of Ellis’ paintings which collected in the Queensland Museum were illustrated plenty of species of animal, such as beetles, butterflies, snakes and dragonflies. These insects or animals in Ellis’ works probably added later after the plants, because most of Ellis paintings finished indoor and the flower was often picked by herself or given to her by the local people. it has been questioned that whether the representation of these real species was accurate in their context. It is probably that Ellis combined plants and insects at random, without thinking carefully about the relationship between them. Ellis’ interest with animals was derived from her early experience with her family, as recollected by her niece Lady Casey:
‘She had inherited the interest of her grandfather John Cotton not only in flora and fauna but in insects and even reptiles; she enjoyed the accident of life, the fusion of one aspect of nature with another. … Some of our family, the Le Souefs, actually had a feeling for shakes. They liked running their warm fingers over those long cold exquisite bodies.’
Ellis Rowan full of enthusiasm with her artistic creation, which enabled herself to observe the insect world and animal life. These magical creatures brought her entertainment and helped her escape from her busy business of botanical painting. In spite of observing insects, Ellis also a collector of them. Her letters which wrote during her journey always mentioned collecting activities, and some of them were the adventurous stories of snakes. There were sheets of paper painted with rows and rows butterflies leaning on Ellis’ studio wall. They indicate the study that Ellis down as a source of adding to the flower paintings. However, the adding of these animals and insects were more for the artistic effect rather than the realistic illustration. Though the scientific value of Ellis’ botanical Paintings is limited, they are as the excellent record of history of some Queensland's flora drawn by an artist who was in search of the aesthetic expression and picturesque beauty.
Royal Worcester
Rowan was commissioned to do a series of paintings to be used as designs on
Royal Worcester
Royal Worcester is a porcelain brand based in Worcester, England. It was established in 1751 and is believed to be the oldest or second oldest remaining English porcelain brand still in existence today, although this is disputed by Royal Crown De ...
tea sets. A collection of this porcelain is held at the
National Trust of Australia
The National Trust of Australia, officially the Australian Council of National Trusts (ACNT), is the Australian national peak body for community-based, non-government non-profit organisations committed to promoting and conserving Australia's Ind ...
property
Saumarez Homestead
Saumarez Homestead is a heritage-listed homestead located at 230 Saumarez Road, Armidale in the Armidale Regional Council local government area of New South Wales, Australia. The homestead was designed by J. W. Pender in the Federation Edwardi ...
. A collection of the original drawings is held at the
Museum of Royal Worcester
The Museum of Royal Worcester (formerly ''Worcester Porcelain Museum'' and ''Dyson Perrins Museum'') is a ceramics museum located in the Royal Worcester porcelain factory's former site in Worcester, England.
Overview
The museum houses the wo ...
.
Selected list of medals awarded Ellis Rowan
* International Exhibition Melbourne, 1873
*
Sydney International Exhibition
The Sydney International Exhibition was established headed by Lord Augustus Loftus and took place in Sydney in 1879, after being preceded by a number of Metropolitan Intercolonial Exhibitions through the 1870s in Prince Alfred Park.
Organi ...
, 1879
* Special Merit, Ellis Rowan, Macedon. Flower Painting, International Exhibition, Sydney, 1879
*
International Colonial and Export Exhibition
The International Colonial and Export Exhibition (Dutch: ''Internationale Koloniale en Uitvoerhandel Tentoonstelling''; French: ''Exposition Universelle Coloniale et d'Exportation Générale'') was a colonial exhibition (a type of World's Fair) ...
Colonial and Indian Exhibition
The Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886 was held in South Kensington in London with the objective to (in the words of the then Prince of Wales) "stimulate commerce and strengthen the bonds of union now existing in every portion of her Majes ...
, London, 1886
*
Melbourne International Exhibition (1880)
The Melbourne International Exhibition is the eighth World's fair officially recognised by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) and the first official World's Fair in the Southern Hemisphere.
Preparations
After being granted self-go ...
, ‘Vitam Excolvere per Artem’
* London International Exhibition, Crystal Palace, 1884
* Centennial International Exhibition, Melbourne, 1888
* World Columbian Exposition in Commemoration of the Four Hundredth Anniversary of the Landing of Columbus, 1892-1893
Source:
Australian Dictionary of Biography
The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...
Image:Rhododendron calendulaceumCDP119A.jpg, Flame azalea by Ellis Rowan, from ''Southern Wildflowers and Trees'' by
Alice Lounsberry
Alice Lounsberry (6 November 1868 – 21 November 1949, both in New York City) was an American botanist and author active in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (Some sources give her birth year as 1872.) She worke ...
File:Ellis Rowan26.jpg, Rothschild's Bird of Paradise '' Astrapia rothschildi'',
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
c. 1917.
Image:Gelsemium sempervirensCDP140CA.jpg,
Her portrait by Sir John Longstaff, paid for by public subscription, was unveiled in 1929. It was the first national portrait of an Australian woman.
Rowan Street
A street in the
Canberra
Canberra ( )
is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...
suburb of
Cook
Cook or The Cook may refer to:
Food preparation
* Cooking, the preparation of food
* Cook (domestic worker), a household staff member who prepares food
* Cook (professional), an individual who prepares food for consumption in the food industry
* ...
is named in her honour.
Ellis Rowan Building
The first building in the
Australian National Botanic Gardens
The Australian National Botanic Gardens (ANBG) is a heritage-listed botanical garden located in , Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory, Australia. Established in 1949, the Gardens is administered by the Australian Government's Departme ...
was named in her honour.
See also
*
List of Australian botanical illustrators
This is a list of botanical illustrators who were/are active or born in Australia.
Botanical illustration involves the painting, drawing and illustration of plants and ecosystems. Often meticulously observed, the botanical art tradition combin ...