Ola Cohn

This is a gem, beautifully presented, and surely a labour of love? Barbara Lemon, a Project Manager, Historian and Researcher who has worked at libraries and universities in Melbourne and New Zealand, has undertaken a daunting task of reducing Ola Cohn's 150,000 word unpublished autobiography to (and here I guess) one third that size, judiciously selecting from Ola's writings the vignettes and opinions that most cogently convey something of the essence of this remarkable woman. Cohn (1892-1964) was a sculptor best known for her slightly tangential but tender work, the Fairy Tree, in the Fitzroy Gardens of inner city Melbourne. But she was far more rigorous a figure, even controversial a figure, than that iconic piece of whimsy would lead us to believe. Lemon presents enough of Cohn's words to give us glimpses of a strong, somewhat esoteric, modernist artist and writer, a sort of instinctive philosopher, a random intellectual lovechild of Madame Blavatsky and May Gibbs (both of whom who as far as I know she never encountered). But Lemon allows Cohn to tell the story far more tenderly and accurately than this suggests. A well presented, extraordinarily well priced gem made possible by the State Library of Victoria.… (mais)