Name

Olive Ashworth

Other names

ASHWORTH, Olive Marie

Culture

Australian

Gender

Female

Birth date

3 July 1915

Birth place

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia View on map Close map

Occupations

Artist | Artist (commercial) | Artist (textile) | Designer | Poster artist

Summary

Worked: Australia (QLD). Poster designs

NGA IRN

7047

Context

Australia

Biography

Olive Marie Ashworth was born on 3 July 1915 in Brisbane. In 1933 she went to Melbourne to study commercial art at the Victorian Art Training Institute, where she had considerable success at the exhibition of students' work after her first year, winning several medals and a scholarship for the greatest number of first prizes. Olive Ashworth returned to Brisbane to work as a freelance commercial artist.

In 1951 she was runner-up in the first Grafton Award with a Barrier Reef floral motif textile design and in 1954 was a prize-winner in the Leroy-Alcorso Textile Design Competition with the design 'Aquarelle'. 'Aquarelle' was subsequently awarded the special prize as the bestseller of the 'Signature Prints' series. Olive Ashworth also won an award in the 1955 competition. She received commissions over the following years to design furnishing fabrics and murals for motels, hotels and restaurants, as well as designing and producing tourist brochures. In 1971 she established the firm 'Indigenous Design of Australia', specializing initially in furnishing fabrics and then in dressmaking fabrics. Olive Ashworth's fabrics were exhibited in 'Costumes, Masks and Jewellery of the Commonwealth' at the Queensland Art Gallery in 1982.

© Christopher Menz, ada 1992