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Olive Cotton (1929)

Olive Cotton (1929) was one of Australia’s most respected photographers and a pioneer of modernist photography with a career spanning six decades.

Olive Edith Cotton (1929) enrolled at Â鶹ÊÓƵ School in 1921 at the age of 9. She was an all-rounder at School; in her final year, she was on the 1st Senior Netball Team, the Senior Swimming Team, an Excelsior Student Representative, a Senior School Prefect, and the winner of both the Old Girls’ Union Prize and the School Prize.

Olive Cotton is part of a large, multi-generational Â鶹ÊÓƵ School family; her mother, sister, aunts and cousins were all students at Â鶹ÊÓƵ School.

At the age of eleven Olive was given a Kodak Box Brownie camera and taught the basics in photography by her father, Leo Cotton, Professor of Geology at the University of Sydney. Her mother, Old Girl, Florence Cotton (Channon, 1902), was interested in the arts and music, and Olive was encouraged to pursue all her interests. While still at Â鶹ÊÓƵ School, Olive joined the Photographic Society of NSW and the Sydney Camera Club.

After completing her Leaving Certificate at Â鶹ÊÓƵ School, Olive went on to the University of Sydney graduating with a BA in 1934.

In mid-1934 Olive began to work with her childhood friend, , in his newly opened studio at 24 Bond Street, Sydney. And in 1935 and 1937, her photographic works were exhibited in the London Salon of Photography ( in 1935, and and in 1937).

From 1939 to 1944 Olive Cotton was married to Max Dupain. They remained great friends after the divorce, so much so that from 1942–1945 she managed the Max Dupain studio while Dupain was on war service.

Olive Cotton moved to Koorawatha near Cowra in 1946 with her second husband, Ross McInerney, whom she had married in 1944. In 1964 she opened a photographic studio in Cowra specialising in portraiture, especially of children, and wedding photography.

In the 1980s Cotton’s photographs once again began to receive serious attention. They were included in the 1981 Art Gallery of NSW exhibition ‘Silver and Grey’ and in the 1981–1982 in touring exhibition ‘Australian Women Photographers 1890-1950.

In 1983 Cotton was awarded a Visual Arts Board grant to print photographs for the retrospective exhibition, ‘Olive Cotton Photographs 1924-1984’, which opened at the Australian Centre for Photography in 1985 and subsequently toured.

‘Light Years’, a film by Kathryn Millard on Olive Cotton’s life and work, was released in 1991. In the same year Teacup Ballet was issued on a stamp to mark the 150th anniversary of photography in Australia. Olive Cotton was awarded an Emeritus Fellowship from the Australia Council in 1993.

Olive Cotton’s work is held in numerous public collections around Australia, including the and the . The annual , held at the Tweed Regional Gallery, is one of Australia’s most prestigious photographic awards.

A book of Olive’s life and work, by Emeritus Professor Helen Ennis, was published in 2019. This book is described as ‘a landmark biography of a singular and important Australian photographer’.