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Adela Dora Ohlfsen-Bagge (28 August 1869 – 7 February 1948), known professionally as Dora Ohlfsen, was an Australian sculptor and medallist, described as "possibly Australia's first 'art medallist'." Working mostly in Italy, Olhfsen's earliest prominent work was a bronze medallion, The Awakening of Australian Art (1907), which won an award at the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition in London and was purchased for the Petit Palais in Paris. Other notable works include the Anzac Medallion (1916), created to raise funds for Australians and New Zealanders who fought in the Gallipoli campaign, and Sacrifice (1926), the war memorial in Formia, Italy.

Ohlfsen's portrait medallions covered a wide range of public figures, including Gabriele D'Annunzio, H. H. Asquith, David Lloyd George, Billy Hughes, and Mussolini, who allowed her to sketch him in 1922 at the Palazzo Chigi while he worked. Twenty-five of her works are known to have survived, out of at least 121.

In 1948 Ohlfsen and her lifelong partner, Hélène de Kuegelgen, were found dead in their apartment in Rome as a result of a gas leak. The police deemed it an accident.

Early life and education

The fourth of seven daughters, Ohlfsen was born in Ballarat, Victoria, to Kate Ohlfsen-Bagge, née Harrison, an Australian, and Christian Hermann Ohlfsen-Bagge (died 31 July 1908), an engineer born in Grabionna (now Poland) of Norwegian stock.

The family was well-known locally. Kate Ohlfsen-Bagge was the daughter of Captain John Harrison—born in Cumberland, England, he became known in Australia for squatting and other political activism—and the granddaughter of the first government printer in Victoria, George Howe. Christian Ohlfsen-Bagge moved to Australia in 1849 and made money during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s and 1860s. In 1855 he was the architect of the Olympic Theatre in Melbourne (demolished in 1894), which had been constructed in England and shipped to Australia, and he was involved in the construction of the Ballarat public library and the Bondi Ocean Outfall Sewer.

When Ohlfsen was 14, the family moved to 4 Mona Terrace, Darling Point, a suburb of Sydney, and from 1884 to 1886 she attended Sydney Girls High School. A 1908 Sydney Mail profile described her when she left school as a "tall, willowy girl of 16, with a very distinguished manner, beautiful dark eyes, and hair, and a brilliant complexion". From around 1888 she studied piano under the French pianist Henri Kowalski, and in June 1889 she performed at the Criterion Theatre. The Sydney Mail's Illustrated Supplement featured a profile of her in January 1893, reporting that she had taken Kowalski's place at the Sydney University Musical Society in May 1891 when he had been unable to play—the reporter said "her touch was clear and sparkling"—and at the city's YMCA hall the following May she had given a recital that included Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 23.

In or around July 1892 Ohlfsen decided to study music in Berlin, a plan that was financed by a female friend, apparently with help from Francis Bathurst Suttor, the Australian Minister for Education, and Alfred Pelldram, Consul-General of Germany for Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that she would leave Sydney on the SS Oldenburg for Bremen, Germany, on 24 December 1892.

Berlin and Saint Petersburg

Information about Ohlfsen's life in Europe derives in large measure from Ohlfsen herself, mostly in letters to journalists and friends, including Gother Mann, director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. There are inconsistencies between the accounts. The historian Ros Pesman writes that "either , the journalist, or both constructed a romantic narrative of the life of the 'lady artist', a little outré and eccentric, including early exotic adventuring and later participation in a cosmopolitan and sophisticated art world."

In Berlin she attended Theodor Kullak's Neue Akademie der Tonkunst, where she studied under Moritz Moszkowski and said she had played for the Kaiser. Her time in Berlin was cut short by health problems, which she attributed to neuritis in her left arm. "All arrangements were made for my debut," she told an interviewer, "and a concert tour through Germany arranged, for which I was to be paid. Now, it was almost unheard of for a debutante to receive payment, and a foreigner appearing there had never previously been paid. My master had arranged that I should. Just as everything was ready, neuritis of the arm developed in a bad way, and I had to give up music entirely, and all thought of becoming a pianiste." She also called it a nervous breakdown caused by "overwork and too little money". The Australian Economic Depression of 1890 had reportedly left her father unable to fund her studies.

Her career as a pianist over, she visited friends in Oranienbaum, Russia, and there, it seems, she met her lifelong companion, Hélène (or Elena) de Kuegelgen, a Russian countess. By 1896 she was trying to make a living in Saint Petersburg. "I taught music, counterpoint and harmony," she wrote, "coaching musical students for their examinations. Then I became a sort of private secretary to the American ambassador . He had a newspaper in St. Louis, of which he still retained control while carrying out his ambassadorial duties." Apparently she wrote articles on Russian issues for American newspapers under the ambassador's byline. She began studying painting and sculpture and said she had sold a painting—which she called a "great matchbox of wood"—to the Empress of Russia.

Move to Rome

The Awakening of Australian Art (1907)

Fearing the onset of the 1905 Russian Revolution, Ohlfsen and Kuegelgen moved to Rome in 1902, where Ohlfsen was reportedly taught by the sculptor Camille Alaphilippe at the French Academy and Pierre Dautel, the French metal engraver. Eileen Chanin and Steven Miller note that the French Academy was open only to male French citizens at the time, so Ohlfsen probably attended evening classes there. She also said she had studied painting at the Spanish Academy. Engraving portraits on medallions became fashionable in Europe in the early 20th century, and Kuegelgen used her social connections to secure commissions. In 1903 three of Ohlfsen's paintings were exhibited in Rome at the annual Società Amatori; she told a reporter she had been introduced to Queen Elena of Italy. In 1905 three of her portrait bas-reliefs were shown at the 75th International Exhibition of Fine Arts in Rome, and in 1906 and 1907 she presented bas-reliefs, medallions and sculptures. In 1907 art historian Arturo Jahn Rusconi wrote of Ohlfsen's "delightful bas-reliefs in bronze, portraits and various compositions, executed with tremendous grace and subtlety of spirit. This year, as well as some portrait medals and plaquetts finely worked up, she has exhibited a very beautiful plaque, Autumn , which together with refined taste also demonstrates mastery of sculptural modelling".

Olhfsen and Kuegelgen settled into a studio/apartment on the Via di S. Nicola da Tolentino, opposite the church of San Nicola da Tolentino agli Orti Sallustiani and near Piazza Barberini; according to the Sydney Sunday Times in 1915, the studio was at no. 72. It seems the women lived there until their deaths in 1948. In 1907 L'Italia published an article about a salon in Olhfsen's studio, which included Donna Nicoleta Grazioli and Princess Maria Rospigliosi. The Via di S. Nicola da Tolentino was a well-known haunt of writers and artists. Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women (1868), apparently had an apartment there in 1870–1871, as did the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in 1871–1875. According to Susan Cheever, Alcott sat for her first portrait in the studio of the American artist George Healy, also on the Via di S. Nicola da Tolentino.

Olhfsen's first notable work was a bronze medallion, The Awakening of Australian Art (1907), 29.5 cm in diameter. The front shows a naked woman stretching outside at dawn and the back a pastoral scene with sheep and a horseman. According to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, it became the first of Ohlfsen's art to be added to a public collection when the French government purchased it in 1907 for the Petit Palais. In June 1908 a replica of the medal won an award at the Franco-British Exhibition in London, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales bought a replica in 1910.

In 1907 Ohlfsen visited England, where she stayed with the actor Mary Anderson at the latter's home in Broadway, Worcestershire, and created a medallion portrait of her. Nellie Melba, the Australian soprano, also sat for one in England. Her other work at this time included medallion portraits of the lawyer Robert Randolph Garran, the actor Mary Anderson (1906), and the poet Gabriele d'Annunzio. In or around May 1908 Ohlfsen appeared on the cover of Rivista di Roma, with a feature by art historian Arturo Jahn Rusconi, who praised her work: "medals in their subtle, low relief, of necessity restrained as a light and shade, vibrate with an intense spirit of life as do some of those amongst the most famous medals of our Renaissance". The following year she was added to the Biographical Dictionary of Medallists, the first Australian to be included. In 1910 she was reported by her sister Rita Ohlfsen-Bagge to be working on a medallion of Archduke Eugen of Austria after being introduced to him by Princess Marie of Windisch-Graetz. Between 1910 and 1914 she sculpted three nudes: Le septième voile, Dawn, and The Pitcher Goes to the Fountain.

Art gallery façade (c. 1915)

By 1912 Ohlfsen's work was highly regarded. Hoping to receive a commission in Australia, she moved back in July 1912 for about 15 months. The Art Gallery of New South Wales bought five of her works after she submitted 20 pieces, including three statuettes, to a Royal Art Society of New South Wales exhibition in September 1912. Among the works shown was a medallion portrait of Hélène de Kuegelgen; the Sydney Morning Herald noted that Ohlfsen and Kuegelgen were living together in Rome. In June 1913 Campbell Carmichael, Minister of Education, unveiled her bronze medallions of Shakespeare and Goethe in the auditorium of the Little Theatre. After Sydney, she held an exhibition of her medallions in Melbourne.

One of the medallions exhibited in Sydney was a replica of Femminismo, portraying a 1908 suffragist march in London—probably Women's Sunday, organized by the suffragettes—which was shown at the Paris Salon; on the back was a woman lifting a veil from her face. Before she left Australia in 1913, Ohlfsen said she had a message for Australian women: "fter living in countries where women are working so hard for freedom I have been astonished at the casual attitude of the average woman. In other lands your Australian women are looked to as pioneers, as women with golden opportunities; but here you seem to take your advantages as a matter of course. ... It certainly is good to see the absence of the sex-antagonism which is so pronounced in other countries."

The visit to Australia led to one of Ohlfsen's greatest artistic disappointments. The Art Gallery of New South Wales commissioned her in August 1913, for £350, to produce bas-relief panels in bronze, 24 ft x 4 ft 6 in, to be installed directly above its front entrance. She was also asked to provide a duplicate for £25. Two round panels on either side would contain bronze portraits of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Ohlfsen would arrange for the bronze casting to be completed in the Siot-Decauville foundry in Paris. The building's architect, Walter Vernon, had included plans for such a sculpture in 1901. Deciding to depict a chariot race—the Sydney Morning Herald described it in April 1914 as "A Roman Chariot Race"—Ohlfsen worked on it after returning to Rome in October 1913. She told the newspaper she needed to work in her own studio "with my friends coming in and out, criticising and helping"; she hoped to return to Australia the following year to see it installed.

The gallery's trustees responded positively to her proposals in December 1914, and in 1915 she took photographs of the work to London. She said in 1920 that it had taken her two years to complete and that she had exhibited it in Rome. By 1917 she had sent the trustees photographs of the completed plaster cast, and later she sent them two examples of the cast, which the gallery did not preserve. In September 1919, after a series of disputes, the trustees cancelled the commission. There had been a disagreement about the cost of the bronze; she had asked the gallery's director, Gother Mann, whether he imagined "I have sums of money lying about in war time to spend like that on my own account. I am not Mackennal at whose feet Australia pours mines of liquid gold ..." On 9 June 1917 she asked the gallery to pay for the bronze in advance, writing to Mann: "I am certainly not going to have the panel cast in bronze until the money is in the bank with which to pay the founder ...".

There was also an artistic disagreement, which seemed to hinge in part on whether the chariot race was Roman or Greek. Ohlfsen wrote to Mann in October 2016 to express concern about the portraits of da Vinci and Michelangelo: "those two enormous heads will kill the importance of the principal panel". She wrote later: "You have not answered me as to my suggestions for the two end panels of one yard square. As I pointed out in a previous letter two large heads of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci would be anachronisms as they don't belong to the Greek epoch of the panel. It is a Greek chariot race."

To keep costs down, she suggested they install the plaster cast and paint it bronze, but the cancellation stood; the chair of the trustees, John Sulman, wrote to Mann: "Miss Ohlfsen is a woman, and although she has no case, can cause mischief." In October 2019 the gallery opened an exhibition, Dora Ohlfsen and the façade commission (12 October 2019 – 8 March 2020) to explore the cancellation. Six female artists from New South Wales, including Julie Rrap, were asked to examine Ohlfsen's photographs and reflect on what to do with the space, which has remained empty for over 100 years.

Anzac Medallion (1916)

During World War I (1914–1918), Ohlfsen and Kuegelgen trained as Red Cross nurses. She wrote to Gother Mann of the Art Gallery of New South Wales:

There is a great need of nurses and now a branch of the English Red Cross Society has come to Rome and English women are asked & go through a Voluntary Aid course. Great preparations are being made for bringing English wounded to this country and one sees crowds of English, French and Serbian officers and soldiers about ... I also told you that when I first Paris I found my founder was dead and my reducers for medals—all killed. The number of artists killed too is appalling.

In January 1915 she helped to nurse the injured during the Avezzano earthquake, and later worked in the Italian Auxiliary Hospital near her studio in Rome. Photographs of her in her nurse's uniform were published in Australia. Art historian Juliette Peers noted that Ohlfsen's "anecdotes of life on the Italian front found a ready market amongst Australian journalists". Other artwork at this time included a medallion of her friend Colonel Duke Fulco Tosti di Valminuta.

In October 1916 Ohlfsen created the work she is best known for in Australia, the Anzac Medallion, originally intended to help and commemorate members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) who took part in the Gallipoli campaign (1915–1916) during World War I. Sixty thousand Australian soldiers, out of an overall population of four million, died during the war. She told Mann that, although she had created it for Gallipoli, the medallion "could be dedicated to those fallen in this war in general. If it should be put to any use by the Government I should like half of the proceeds to go the mutilated." When it was issued in 1919, the original 1915–16 date range was changed to 1914–18.

The front of the medal depicts a young woman, who represents Australia, bending over a young man to place a laurel wreath on his head; the back, showing an Anzac soldier with a rifle, bears the inscription "Anzac. In Eternal Remembrance. 1914–18", and in smaller letters "Dora Ohlfsen 1916". The woman was based on 21-year-old Alexandra Simpson, who lived in Rome, the daughter of the British High Commissioner in China. Ohlfsen wrote to Mann: "I have made 'Australia' and her son very young—representing as they do the youngest country and the youngest army."

According to numismatics curator Ken Sheedy, the medal is "perhaps one of the most remarkable of all Australian commemorative medals ... distinguished by its skill and poignancy" from other World War I medals. Peers argued that the image of the soldier on the reverse, almost in silhouette, "avoided the usual over-literal depiction of men in uniform, which characterises the more pedantic medals that generally were produced in Australia during and after the war. The almost total emphasis on the outline of the figure allows  ... to consider the question of negative, as well as positive, space within the roundel suggesting ... how keenly she attended to the issue of designing for the medal format."

Ohlfsen apparently sold hundreds of the medals to Sir Charles Wade, Premier of New South Wales, so that he could sell them in Australia at two guineas each to raise money. Edward, Prince of Wales received the first medal, and Wade, along with Generals William Birdwood, John Monash, and Talbot Hobbs, joined a committee in 1919 to oversee the distribution. Ohlfsen's idea was to create four medals. She wrote to the director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in January 1917: "I am doing a series of medals on my own account to commemorate the war. One for Anzacs, which is finished, one for the Italians, one for the artists of the French Academy (Villa Medici) in Rome and one of the Russian Cavalry." She announced in July 1919 that she had completed one for the American airforce. Valued at £15 in 1978 in Seaby's Coin and Medal Bulletin, a few of the Anzac medals survived and are held in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Art Gallery of Ballarat, and the Australian War Memorial. One coin auctioneer said in 1991 that they were rare—he had sold only four or five in the last 10 years—and valued them at between $200 and $300.

The Mornington Soldier's Memorial war in Mornington, Victoria, dedicated in 1925, features the front of Ohlfsen's Anzac image (the woman and the soldier) on a plaque set into the base of a large cross. Ohlfsen worked on the plaque in 1921 during her visit to Australia. Historian Ken Inglis wrote in 1987 that it was the only "war-memorial representation of Australia as a female" that he was aware of. A reporter at the unveiling ceremony assumed the woman was a nurse.

Visit to Sydney

To promote sales of the Anzac Medallion, Ohlfsen visited Australia in 1920 for the first time since 1913. Dame Margaret Davidson organized an exhibition of her work at Ohlfsen's studio at 110 Bathurst Street, Sydney. The exhibits included a painting of Alexandra Simpson, model for the Anzac medal; The Awakening of Australian Art; a landscape of Venice to commemorate the declaration of World War I; small sculptures such as the Blind Ardito (the Arditi were a special force of the Italian army); and medallion portraits of General Birdwood, David Lloyd George, H. H. Asquith, General Giuseppe Garibaldi II, Sir Charles Wade, William Holman, and Cardinal William Henry O'Connell. In September 1921 she was admitted to hospital in Burwood with blood poisoning after burning her hand with a spirit lamp.

Other work at this time included a medallion of Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes (1921) and a bust of Nellie Stewart (1922) that appeared in Women's World. An admirer of the sculptor Jacob Epstein, she gave a lecture on Futurism, "Fururistic art in its relation to Bolshevism", calling it "the sweeping away of every canon of art in the academic sense in order to destroy the vices into which modern art had fallen". One writer who met her in 1922 described her:

Tall and of one figure and commanding presence, and beautifully gowned, her finely moulded features suggested more the influence of her Polish father than of her English mother. The dark eyes held the inscrutable depths of the visionary, and, somehow, she reminded me irresistibly of Paderewski, a fellow countryman. Her exquisitely modulated voice unmistakably revealed an Italian accent.

Ohlfsen had apparently hoped during the visit to resolve the issue of the façade commission for the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In September 1920, she told the Sydney Sunday Times that the trustees were "waiting until bronze is cheaper to have it cast". The delay was inconvenient, she said, because she had been storing the plaster cast, 8 x 2 yards, in her studio in Rome for the last three years. She considered staying in Australia, but having failed to reach the priorities she had set for herself (an important public commission and artistic recognition), she returned to Rome, leaving Australia in February 1922 on the SS Orsova.

Mussolini medallion (1922)

An early supporter of Benito Mussolini and the National Fascist Party, Ohlfsen was in the crowd during the March on Rome on 30 October 1922 when the fascists took power. "We have been passing through many thrilling times here," she wrote in a letter published by the Sydney Morning Herald in January 1923, "no less than a revolution with a king the head of it. ... At 1 pm I went down to the Café Aragno, on the Corso, with a party of friends. ... We stood on chairs there till 5:30, watching the Corteo march past. ... The Corteo was headed by Mussolini, and the entire procession composed of 100,000 Fascisti, marched past the tomb , giving the Fascisti salute—raising the arm—as in the days of ancient Rome."

The fascists became a source of many of her commissions. According to Stella Free, writing in Grove Art Online, Ohlfsen was "strongly influenced by the cult of dynamic he-men forging history, in line with early Italian Fascism. With modernist overtones, her art is a celebration of idealized figures in their prime, conveying patriotic themes and nationalistic sentiment." In 1922 Adrian Moreing, the British owner of a bauxite mine at Cave del Predil, commissioned her to create a medallion of Mussolini, who apparently gave her two-hour sittings at the Palazzo Chigi while he worked. He signed the plaster cast and added the inscription "per ardua ad astra" (through adversity to the stars). The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Ohlfsen in 1925:

He is, indeed, a man quite above the ordinary, and positively exudes magnetism. He speaks French and German perfectly, and, beginning English last year, can already sustain a conversation in it. His beautiful voice when speaking is like a 'cello bowed by a great artist. I have modelled him wearing his 'dictator's' expression. His face changes with such swiftness and facility that I found I had to choose one aspect, and stick to it, awaiting a chance renewal. His sittings were during a very hectic period (which still continues), but he was always amazingly calm, insolent, and dominating. He promised that I should paint a futuristic picture of him later on.

Sacrifice (1926)

In or around 1923, as a result of Ohlfsen's friendship with Duke Fulco Tosti di Valminuta, who had become an undersecretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Italian government commissioned her to create a war memorial in Formia on the coast of Lazio. At the time she was reportedly the only woman in Italy and the only non-Italian to have been awarded such a commission. In February 1925 she told a correspondent that the work was completed, apart from finishing touches, and was being sent to Formia. Entitled Sacrifice, the 30-foot-tall sculpture consists of a young man, in bronze, standing on a white-marble pedestal with his arms outstretched; on the pedestal itself, holding a palm and a laurel branch, a woman faces the names of those who died in World War I. The inscription, translated, reads "Oh, my country! The life thou gave me I return to thee." The unveiling in July 1926 in the Piazza della Vittoria was attended by General Armando Diaz; Ohlfsen was awarded the Freedom of the City and a silver shield. She described the ceremony in a letter:

Thousands were present; the entire province, Commandants of the fifth Army Corps and of the Navy; Minister of Public Instruction (Signor Fidele) for the Government. While the benediction was being pronounced by the Archbishop of Gaeta, the school children sang very softly the Song of the Brave, while the gunboats in the bay fired the salute. ... During the entire ceremony, until the flag dropped, a Fascist stood on top of the monument behind the bronze soldier on guard, and from 8 o'clock in the morning the guard round the monument was relieved by Carbineers, Fascists and military figures. ... Afterwards, the freedom of the city was conferred on me, and the Commander of the Fascists sprang up on the table, at which the press were seated and shouted, "Dora Ohlfsen, Alala!" and all the Fascists shouted the same words, and gave me the Roman salute, to which I answered, and then all the bands burst into Giovenezza. All the war widows and war orphans then came forward and thanked me for calling the soldier 'Sacrifice'".

In Awakening: Four Lives in Art (2015), Eileen Chanin and Steven Miller write that the memorial's "coupling of masculine sacrifice with feminine nurturing fits well with the fascist agenda for sculpture"; they report that Mussolini told Ohlfsen: "you may now be considered an Italian sculptress." Ohlfsen was highly critical of the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park, Sydney, which was completed in 1934. She wrote in a letter: "I'm perfectly shocked at the war memorial they have erected in Sydney done by stonemasons I hear. I saw the photos in The Home... you will note that the nature of the scaled soldiers in a row is nothing but an illustration of 'Latrine Parade' so much described in all the war books. Added to that people write to me that there is to be a centrepiece of a naked woman strung up on a cross!! And the authors of this abomination have the effrontery to call it 'Sacrifice' stealing the title of my war memorial in Formia?" To Ohlfsen's great distress, the Formia memorial was dismantled in 1941—deemed to be "of great historic and patriotic value, but not of great artistic worth"—but it was restored in 2008.

Later work

In 1930 Ohlfsen was invited, along with other artists, to submit sketches for sculptures for the inner shrine of Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance. Asked to sketch Charity and Love , she was disappointed, calling the invitation "this crumb". In the end, the memorial committee chose other work and her idea didn't progress beyond a plaster cast.

Several visitors to Rome called in at Ohlfsen's studio on the Via di S. Nicola da Tolentino. According to one, the studio was next door to the Beda College, which moved to the Via di S. Nicola da Tolentino in 1922. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1935, Huntly McCrae Cowper described "a big room high up in a corner with long windows looking down into narrow streets on either side. As we came in I felt that I was in a crowd of silent people. All round us were figures in bronze and marble, some shrouded in calico, looking like ghosts in fading light.

When Mary Jay, a Sydney writer, visited in the 1930s, the chariot-race plaster cast created for the Art Gallery of New South Wales was hanging on the wall, and the room was full of sculptures, including gardens and fountains, Dionysus in grey stone, and several in pink marble. There was a mural of Anthony of Padua with Australian flowers, and Ohlfsen was working on another of Francis of Assisi with Australian birds. "There are divans and cosy corners, where a glass of Italian vermouth and a cigarette may be enjoyed by the favoured; there are also screens behind which we may not venture, and the whole place has an atmosphere of artistic mystery—very Italian looking and charming." Ohflsen she described as "tall and graceful with remarkable hands. While working she swathes her head in a coloured kerchief, which hides her pretty hair."

Death

Little was heard from Ohlfsen during World War II (1939–1945). In October 1940 her name was included in a list of Australians who had been denied permission to leave Italy, a list released by Australia's Minister for External Affairs. Reportedly distressed by the dismantling of the Formia war memorial in 1941, she had been left without work by the fall of the fascists, the source of many of her commissions. The protecting powers gave her some kind of assistance during the war, after which she and Kuegelgen apparently had to finance themselves by selling their belongings.

On 7 February 1948 the women were found dead as a result of a gas leak in their apartment on the Via di S. Nicola da Tolentino. The police declared the deaths an accident, but there was speculation that it was suicide. "To the end," Peers wrote, " maintained the sense of the dramatic that she had always cultivated." According to Miller, her studio was packed up by friends, and the contents have not been traced. The women were buried together at Cimitero Acattolico (Zone 1.15.28), the non-Catholic cemetery in Rome. Ohlfsen's bas-relief of the Greek god Dionysus sits on the tombstone, which reads in Italian:

Posthumous exhibitions

• Through Women's Eyes, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 30 July 1994 – 30 June 1995.
• Beyond the Picket Fence: Australian women's art in the National Library collections, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 8 March 1995 – 8 June 1995.
• Review: Speaking of Women, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 8 March 1995 – 8 June 1995.
• Dora Ohlfsen and the façade commission, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 12 October 2019 – March 2020.

Selected works

Medallions

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Sculptures

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Paintings

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Notes

1. Henri Kowalski lived in Sydney from 1885 to 1896.
2. The Sydney Morning Herald (7 April 1914): "A commission was given to Miss Dora Ohlfsen, an Australian sculptor now resident in Rome, to execute a bronze panel for the exterior entrance facade of the gallery/building. The subject is to be 'A Roman Chariot Race'."
3. The Sands' Directory listed "Ohlfsen Miss Dora, artist" as having premises on the fifth floor of the Albert buildings, 110 Bathurst Street, Sydney, in 1921.

References

1. Chanin, Eileen; Miller, Steven (2015). Awakening: Four lives in art. Mile End, South Australia: Wakefield Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-1-74305-365-2. OCLC 902750805. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
2. ^ Peers, Juliette (1992). "A Rare and Difficult Art: The Career of the Australian Medallist Dora Ohlfsen". The Medal. 21. British Art Metal Society: 40–43. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
3. ^ "About: Image of the original cast of 'The Awakening of Australian Art' 1907 by Dora Ohlfsen on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales". Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 28 September 2019.
4. ^ Morris, Linda (27 September 2019). "Dora Ohlfsen and the cancelled Art Gallery of NSW commission". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 25 October 2019. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
5. ^ Edwards, Deborah (1995). "Ohlfsen Bagge (Ohlfsen), Dorothea (Dora)". In Kerr, Joan (ed.). Heritage: The National Women's Art Book: 500 Works by 500 Australian Women Artists from Colonial Times to 1955. East Roseville, NSW: G+B Arts International. p. 420. ISBN 978-9766410452. OCLC 32438124. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

   Also published as Edwards, Deborah (25 February 2015). "Dora Ohlfsen-Bagge b. 22 August 1869: Biography". Design & Art Australia Online. Archived from the original on 25 October 2019.

6. ^ Chanin & Miller 2015, pp. 1–2.
7. ^ "Miss Dora Ohlfsen-Bagge". The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser. 14 January 1893. p. 1. Archived from the original on 9 October 2019.
8. For seven daughters, see "Obituary". The Sydney Mail. 5 August 1908. p. 324.
9. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 2; Kiers, Dorothy (1972). "Harrison, John (1802–1869)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Volume 4. Melbourne University Press.
10. "Dora Ohlfsen and Her Work". The Triad. 6 (12): 23–24. 10 September 1921.
11. "New Theatre at Melbourne". The Era (London). 29 July 1855. p. 11; first published in the Melbourne Age. 19 April 1855.

    Thompson, David (29 November 2018). "Melbourne’s first pop-up theatre". CBD News.

12. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 2.
13. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 3.
14. ^ Free, Stella (1 December 2004). "Ohlfsen-Bagge, (Adele) Dora". Grove Art Online. doi:10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T097836.
15. M. S. (10 June 1908). "Stage & Studio: With especial reference to the distinguished career of an Australian artist in Europe". The Sydney Mail. p. 1520.
16. Murphy, Kerry (2017). "Henri Kowalski (1841–1916): A French Musician in Colonial Australia". Australian Historical Studies, 48(3): 346–362. p. 346. doi:10.1080/1031461X.2017.1329327
17. "Musical and Dramatic Notes". The Sydney Morning Herald. 17 December 1892. p. 5. Archived from the original on 24 October 2019.

    "Oldenburg". Caledonian Maritime Research Trust. Archived from the original on 26 October 2019.

18. ^ Yip, Andrew; Miller, Steven. "Dora Ohlfsen: the reluctant fascist". Hidden War. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Archived from the original on 25 October 2019.
19. Pesman, Ros (1996) . Duty Free: Australian Women Abroad. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. p. 54. ISBN 978-0195536393. OCLC 832501910. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
20. ^ Elmes, F. F. (19 September 1908). "'The Awakening of Australian Art': An Interview with Miss Dora Ohlfsen". The Argus. p. 4. Retrieved 10 October 2017.
21. ^ Cite error: The named reference Scarlett1980p482 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
22. ^ "Australian Sculptress Honored in Italy". The Daily Telegraph (Sydney). 18 December 1926. p. 19.
23. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 7.
24. ^ "A Sydney Musician". The Inquirer and Commercial News. 6 November 1896. p. 14.
25. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 8.
26. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 9.
27. Pesman 1996, p. 55; Edwards 1995.
28. ^ "The Anzac Medal. Dora Ohlfsen's Dedication to Bravery". The Register. 19 January 1922. p. 7. Retrieved 10 October 2017.
29. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 12.
30. Cornstalk, Ann (2 December 1912). "Representative Women in Australasia: Miss Dora Ohlfsen". The Lone Hand. 12(68). p. 132.
31. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 15.
32. "Australian Sculptress Executes War Memorial". The Evening Sun (Baltimore). 25 February 1924. p. 7.
33. "Medallion Portraits Europe's Latest Fad". The Washington Times. 13 August 1906. p. 7.
34. "Woman's Page". The Freeman's Journal. 30 May 1903. p. 30; for Società Amatori, see Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 16.
35. "The International Exhibition at Rome". American Art News. 3 (82): 4 (1–6). 15 August 1905. JSTOR 25590132.

    "Notes on the International Exhibition in Rome". Brush and Pencil. 16 (3): 105 (100–103, 105). September 1905. JSTOR 25590132.

36. Rusconi, Arturo Jahn (June 1907). "L'Esposizione di Belle Arti in Roma". Emporium. XXV (150): 420 (405–420). Retrieved 3 October 2019., cited in and translated by Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 16.
37. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 13.
38. "The World and His Wife". The Sunday Times (Sydney). 17 January 1915. p. 5.; Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 13.
39. ^ Miller, Steven (Winter 2013). "Dora Ohlfsen: Australian by birth, Italian at heart (from the inscription on her tomb" (PDF). Newsletter (25). Friends of the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome: 1–2. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 October 2019.

    Miller, Steven (2013). "Dora Ohlfsen: 'Australiana per nascita, Italiana di cuore' (dall'iscrizione sulla sua tomba)" (PDF). Newsletter (25). Amici del Cimitero Acattolico di Roma: 1–2. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 October 2017.

40. For Alcott, see Hutton, Laurence (1897). Literary Landmarks of Rome. New York: Harpers & Brothers Publishers. p. 58. OCLC 1007252427.

    Huemer, Christina (2005). Spellbound by Rome. Rome: Palombi & Partner. p. 135. ISBN 9788876214929 OCLC 978098895

41. Cheever, Susan (2011). Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 217. ISBN 9781416569916. OCLC 688513136.
42. ^ "The awakening of Australian art". Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
43. ^ "The Ohlfsen Medallions". The Sydney Morning Herald. 11 September 1912. p. 20.
44. ^ "Art of Dora Ohlfsen". The Sydney Morning Herald. 9 November 1920. p. 7. Retrieved 10 October 2017.
45. "Exhibition of Australian Women Artists' Work". The Times. 24 June 1908. issue 38681. p. 12; for "replica", see "Art Abroad: An Australian Sculptress Wins Distinction". The Sydney Morning Herald. 1 July 1912. p. 8.
46. Illustrated Catalogue. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales. July 1918 . p. 181. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
47. "Music and Drama". The Sydney Morning Herald. 25 August 1906. p. 4.
48. ^ Cite error: The named reference AndersonAGNSW was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
49. Rusconi, Arturo Jahn (1908). "Un'artista della medaglia". Rivista di Roma. pp. 148–150, cited in and translated by Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 17.
50. Cite error: The named reference PuckSMH20May1908 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
51. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 16.
52. "Puck's Girdle". The Sydney Morning Herald. 12 January 1910, p. 5.
53. "Image of plaster cast for 'Le septième voile' by Dora Ohlfsen". Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 28 September 2019.
54. ^ Meacham, Steve (25 April 2009). "Dora's medal honoured women left to grieve, too". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 11 October 2017.
55. "On Coming Back". The Sydney Morning Herald. 17 July 1912. p. 5; for her departure, see "Australian Types". The Sydney Morning Herald. 22 October 1913. p. 7.
56. "Social". The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 September 1912. p. 6.
57. "The Little Theatre. Unveiling Ceremony Tonight". The Sydney Morning Herald. 6 June 1913. p. 2.
58. "Puck's Girdle". The Sydney Morning Herald. 11 September 1912. p. 5.
59. "Australian Types". The Sydney Morning Herald. 22 October 1913. p. 7. For more on women, see "On Coming Back". The Sydney Morning Herald. 17 July 1912. p. 5.
60. Realization of Ohlfsen's work in place above the entrance. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
61. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 27.
62. ^ "Images of plaster cast of Greek chariot race by Dora Ohlfsen". Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 28 September 2019.
63. ^ "For Women: In the Throng". The Daily Telegraph (Sydney). 8 September 1915. p. 6.
64. "Walter Vernon's architectural plan, 1901". Ohlfsen & the commission. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
65. ^ "The Future of China". The Sydney Morning Herald. 7 April 1914. p. 10.
66. "Australian Types". The Sydney Morning Herald. 22 October 1913. p. 7.
67. ^ "Dora Ohlfsen Home: Her Views on Art and Music". Sunday Times (Sydney). 26 September 1920.
68. "Plaster cast of Greek chariot race, c1918 . Ohlfsen & the commission. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
69. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 32.
70. Ohlfsen, Dora (9 June 1917). "Letter to Gother Mann". Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
71. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 29.
72. "Plaster cast of Greek chariot race, c1918 . Ohlfsen & the commission. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
73. ^ "Dora Ohlfsen and the facade commission". Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
74. "Dora Ohlfsen and the Art Gallery of New South Wales facade commission". artdaily.com, 13 October 2019.
75. Dunn, Jackie (2019). "About face". Look. September – October 2019. Art Gallery Society of New South Wales: 28–29.
76. ^ "Dora Ohlfsen as a nurse during the First World War with two wounded Italian soldiers". Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 28 September 2019.
77. "Dora Ohlfsen. The Anzac Medallions.". The Sydney Morning Herald. 6 August 1920, p. 10.
78. Cite error: The named reference DukeAGNSW was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
79. "Artist profile: Dora Ohlfsen". Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
80. ^ Cite error: The named reference AnzacAGNSW was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
81. Inglis, Ken (Fall 1987). "Men, Women, and War Memorials: Anzac Australia". Daedalus. 116 (4: Learning about Women: Gender, Politics, and Power): 36 (35–59). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
82. "Commemorative Medallion: Anzac In Eternal Remembrance 1914–18". Australian War Memorial. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
83. Sheedy, K. A. (August 1989). "Dora Ohlfsen – the Forgotten Heroine of Australian Medallic Art". Australian Coin Review. 132. pp. 18–21, cited in Reeves, Greg (24 April 1991). "Australia's sons in medals remain". The Sydney Morning Herald. p. 26. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
84. "Letters relating to the Dora Ohlfsen ANZAC Medal Fund, 1919". Australian War Memorial. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
85. "Artist designs medal for American airmen". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 13 July 1919. p. 23; "Dedicates new medal to American airforce". The Times Dispatch. 14 July 1919. p. 3.
86. "Historical Medallions". Seaby's Coin and Medal Bulletin: 200. June 1978. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
87. Reeves 1991.
88. Speck, Catherine (1996). "Women's war memorials and citizenship". Australian Feminist Studies. 11(23):129–145, pp. 136–137. doi:10.1080/08164649.1996.9994810

    "Dora Ohlfsen and the facade commission: Mornington War Memorial". Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 23 October 2019.

89. ^ E. S. A. (11 February 1922). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/165667213 "Women's Sphere: Our Letter". The Observer (Adelaide). 11 February 1922. p. 38.
90. Inglis 1987, p. 45; Inglis, K. S.; Brazier, Jan (2008) . Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, p. 167. ISBN 978-0522854794 OCLC 963680597
91. Inglis 1987, p. 45; "Mornington Soldiers' Memorial", The Age. 19 October 1925, p. 14.
92. "City Street". Sands' Directory for 1921. p. 7.
93. "Near and Far". The Sydney Morning Herald. 20 September 1921. p. 3.
94. Cite error: The named reference Hughes8Nov1921 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
95. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 36.
96. "Italy's Revolution". The Sydney Morning Herald. 10 January 1923. p. 13; also in "Dora Ohlfsen's Letters from Rome". Art Gallery of New South Wales, courtesy of YouTube, 00:02:15. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
97. ^ Cite error: The named reference MussoliniAGNSW was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
98. ^ "Music and Drama: Dora Ohlfsen and Mussolini". The Sydney Morning Herald. 14 February 1925. p. 12.
99. ^ Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 41.
100. ^ "Dedication of the Formia war memorial by Dora Ohlfsen". Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
101. ^ Ramsay, Isabel (22 February 1925). "Australians Abroad: A Noted Sculptor". Sunday Times (Sydney), p. 13.
102. ^ Jay, Mary (21 February 1935). "Dora Ohlfsen, An Australian Sculptress in Italy". The Sydney Morning Herald. p. 6. Retrieved 10 October 2017.
103. "Italian War Memorial". The West Australian: 7. 20 July 1926. Retrieved 28 September 2019.
104. "Dora Ohlfsen (By a Friend)". The Daily News (Perth). 5 February 1927.
105. Chanin & Miller 2015, pp. 41, 43.
106. Chanin & Miller 2015, p. 170; for Ohlfsen's distress, see Speck 2018, p. 134. For the memorial in 2016, see Balestrieri, Francesca (10 May 2016). "Giornata mondiale della Cri a Formia". Luna Notizie. Retrieved 28 September 2019.

     Also see Formia war memorial. Monumenti ai caduti del Lazio. Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo. Retrieved 23 October 2019.

107. Chanin & Miller 2015, pp. 38–39.
108. ^ Jay, Mary (15 July 1933). "News of Dora Ohlfsen". The Australian Women's Weekly. p. 24. Retrieved 10 October 2017.
109. "The Centenary of the Beda". The Tablet. 22 November 1952. p. 15. Archived from the original on 24 November 2015.
110. Cowper, Huntly McCrae (17 October 1935). "The Cafe Cristallini". The Sydney Morning Herald (Women's Supplement), p. 11.
111. "In Enemy Lands: No Passports for Australians". The Age. 4 October 1940. p. 9.
112. Speck, Catherine (20 February 2018). "Books reviews. Awakening: four lives in art". Journal of Australian Studies. 42 (1): 134–136. doi:10.1080/14443058.2018.1426337. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Morris 2019.
113. "Australian Sculptress". Kalgoorlie Miner. 12 February 1948, p. 2.
114. "Tragic Death of Sculptress". The Sydney Morning Herald. 10 February 1948. p. 1; Speck 2018, p. 134; Morris 2019.
115. Miller, Steven (18 February 2015). "Stories from the archive". Art Gallery of New South Wales. Courtesy of YouTube. 00:00:50.
116. Rahtz, Sebastian. "Protestant Cemetery, Rome: Stone 552". databank.ora.ox.ac.uk. (English translation by Misplaced Pages editor). Retrieved 10 October 2017.
117. ^ "Dora Ohlfsen-Bagge b. 22 August 1869: Exhibitions". Design & Art Australia Online. 25 February 2015 .
118. Morris, Linda (25 September 2018). "'Weirdly mouth watering': Art Gallery of NSW to host touring treasure". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 29 September 2019.

External links

• "Dora Ohlfsen archive". Art Gallery of New South Wales.
• Works of Dora Ohlfsen at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
• "Dora Ohlfsen's Letters from Rome". Art Gallery of New South Wales, courtesy of YouTube.
• "Dora Ohlfsen. Trove (search). National Library of Australia.
• Interview with Steven Miller about Ohlfsen. ABC Radio (Australia). 11 June 2015. 00:01:20.
• "Dora Ohlfsen and the facade commission". Art Gallery of New South Wales, 12 October 2019 – March 2020.

Further reading

• "Ohlfsen, Dora Adela (1869–1948)". Obituaries Australia. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
• "Portraits in medals. Miss Dora Ohlfsen describes a rare and difficult art". The British-Australasian. 26 July 1906. p. 7
• McCulloch, Alan and McCulloch, Susan (1994). "Ohlfsen, Dora (Dorothea Ohlfsen-bagge)". The Encyclopedia of Australian Art. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. p. 544. ISBN 978-0824816889 OCLC 222805509
• Peers, Juliette (Jul–Sep 2015). "Reviewed Work(s): Awakening: Four Lives in Art by Eileen Chanin and Steven Miller". AQ: Australian Quarterly. 86(3). pp. 36–39. JSTOR 24877792

• 1869 births
• 1948 deaths
• 20th-century Australian artists
• 20th-century Australian women artists
• 20th-century women artists
• Artists from Victoria (Australia)
• Australian expatriates in Italy
• Australian landscape painters
• Australian portrait painters
• Australian women artists
• Australian women painters
• Female nurses in World War I
• Lesbian artists
• LGBT artists from Australia
• Medallists
• People educated at Sydney Girls High School
• People from Ballarat