Ellis Rowan: Australia’s Brilliant Botanical Rebel

July 30, 1922

On this day, we honor Ellis Rowan, that most remarkable Australian artist and botanical illustrator, born in 1848, whose life blazed across the canvas of botanical art like a brilliant, untamed wildflower refusing to be contained by the formal gardens of her era.

In a 1994 newspaper article, Sarah Guest captured the essence of this extraordinary woman with piercing accuracy:

"She was an explorer.

She set off alone at 68, for Papua New Guinea - who died in 1922.

She dyed her hair red; had a face-lift; left her husband (the suggestion is that this good woman was simply bored); was a member of one of Victoria's great pastoralist families; was a much-admired, prolific, technically proficient and joyous painter of plants and birds; and a conservationist she campaigned to stop the slaughter of birds for the decoration of ladies' hats... in her day she was known as "Australia's brilliant daughter" which, indeed, she was."

Now dear readers, imagine if you will: a proper Victorian lady who, rather than wilting in the parlor with needlework, discovered her artistic calling only after her botanist husband Frederick encouraged her to develop a talent.

What began as a gentle pastime soon blazed into passionate profession, leading our intrepid Ellis into the untamed wilderness of Australia where no proper lady had ventured before. While we in our gardens fuss over the placement of a single rose bush, Rowan trekked through uncharted territories with her paintbrushes and determination as her only companions!

During the Great War, while the rest of us were rationing butter and knitting socks for soldiers, our Ellis was living in the wilds of New Guinea, capturing on canvas an astonishing 45 of the 62 known species of birds of paradise.

One can hardly imagine the spectacle!

And yet, despite her adventurous spirit, Rowan maintained the appearance of propriety that would satisfy even the most stringent society matron. Whether standing in a sweltering jungle or perched on a rocky outcrop, she remained impeccably dressed in heavy ankle-length dresses, high collars with full sleeves - the full Victorian regalia of crinolines, corsets, whalebone stays, and always, always a hat. One suspects the local fauna must have been quite bemused by this crimson-haired apparition in full drawing room attire painting furiously in their midst!

Just before our Ellis departed this mortal canvas, the Australian federal parliament engaged in that most tedious of human activities - debate - over whether to purchase 1,000 of her magnificent paintings. This despite the protestations of that insufferable Australian artist and novelist, Norman Lindsay, who had the audacity to dismiss her work as "vulgar art."

Imagine!

A man who couldn't recognize the divine in a wildflower, proclaiming it unworthy as a subject of "real art"!

Fortunately, wisdom prevailed, and the paintings were acquired for the princely sum of $5000. They now reside in Australia's national library, a testament to a woman who refused to let society's garden walls contain her brilliant, botanical vision.