National Library of Australia
The Flower Hunter | Ellis Rowan

Birds of Paradise

I found … the most wonderful flowers in the whole world

—Ellis Rowan, 1916

Freycinetia marginata c.1916-1917In May 1916, during the middle of World War I, Ellis Rowan set off to New Guinea for seven months at the age of 68. The Royal Worcester Porcelain Company had commissioned Rowan to paint 100 flowers and some birds of paradise in New Guinea—an offer she accepted unconditionally.

 

Rowan had long wanted to visit New Guinea, but her husband and others had rightly cautioned her of its danger. After many years of German occupation, the Melanesian Islands became an Australian protectorate in 1914. This was her great chance.The flower paintings from this trip, however, were nothing like the delicate posies of her youth—they had become overwhelmingly luscious with the image pulled right up to the picture plane and bold colours carried in confidant brush strokes to the edge of the paper.

[Amorphophallus Flower and Fruit ] c.1916–1917 Some of the flowers are 24 or 30 inches long, but perhaps the most remarkable—not the most beautiful … is one which is circular in shape, and about 15 inches in diameter. It is dark brown and velvety in appearance, and has a thick fleshy substance under the actual flower, which seems to be in a state of putrefaction. It has a terrible smell—sufficient to poison a whole regiment—but the strange thing is you only smell it between 4 o’clock in the afternoon and 9 o’clock at night.

—Ellis Rowan, 1916

[Elliot's Bird of Paradise] c.1917The following year Rowan returned to New Guinea, this time in an attempt to paint every single Bird of Paradise, of which 52 were already known. She stayed at the Madang Mission House, on the north coast. The area was dotted with efficient German copra plantations and mission stations, where trade in birds and butterflies was a common practice. Rowan had sufficient language skills to arrange an exhibition at a local German store, while awaiting travel to the hills. Reluctant to send an elderly white woman alone to these dangerous parts, the resident missionary eventually made arrangements for her to be carried in a hammock by a party of guides. In the manner of most dealers in plumes, the first six birds were brought to her dead. With no intention of painting dead birds, she offered bribes of tobacco to the local ‘head-hunters’ to deliver the specimens alive and housed in cages:

The large ones I tucked under my arm and held in that way while I painted them. Some were fierce and hard to hold … I covered the heads of others with handkerchiefs or a table napkin to keep them a little quieter while I was painting the body …

—Ellis Rowan, 1918

Rothschild's Bird of Paradise (Astrapia rothschildi) c.1917Living under the most difficult conditions in the tropical heat, inevitably her health broke down and, suffering from malaria and fatigue, she was carried by guides down from the high country to the coast where she was expected to die. With the courage that had seen her through so many intrepid adventures, she rallied and, on return to Australia with over 300 paintings, she went to Macedon to be nursed by her sister Blanche Ryan.

In 1918 Rowan exhibited 189 works depicting the flora and fauna encountered during her time in New Guinea at a show at the Fine Arts Society Galleries. Included were paintings of 172 flower species, 40 birds of paradise, 72 fungi, two pictures of coral, a bat, a squirrel and a fish. A critic from the Sun newspaper noted:

The artist is proud of her mushroom collection, only one of her specimens being known to science.

Sun, 13 March 1918

[Netted Stinkhorn Fungus, Dictyophora phalloidea or Dictyophora multicolour] c.1916–1917 Rowan herself described the fungi as:

Growing, they look like dolls dressed up in fluted lace petticoats … Some are apple green, others mauve; one is black, and another has a scarlet cap. They stand high on long white stems, and the fungus closely resembles exquisite lace.

Rowan’s final years were spent campaigning for her works to become a national collection. Despite suffering from the effects of malaria, she continued her work for the Royal Worcester Porcelain Company, receiving accolades for her Bird of Paradise designs which were copied by Sedgley and Philips and the Austin brothers.

Twenty–two butterflies c.1918–1920She spent her last winters at her cousin Una Falkiner’s Riverina property, Widgiewa, where she turned her attention to painting a series of butterflies from the famous Dodd collection.

I have just finished 2175 butterflies and moths of New Guinea, that means work, as they are difficult to paint.

—Ellis Rowan, letter dated 17 June 1918 or 1919

In March 1920 Rowan staged the largest solo exhibition held in Australia to that date, displaying 1000 paintings, including her butterflies at Anthony Hordern’s Gallery, Sydney. With the exception of her butterflies, all works were for sale. Opened by Governor Sir Walter Davidson, he urged that the collection be bought by the nation, a point reiterated in an article ‘A Rare Collection’:

… it is exceedingly important that the works of Mrs Rowan should be preserved as a national collection, for their educative value is very great indeed. The New Guinea collection on show … is an amazing achievement for any woman to have accomplished.

Ellis Rowan continued to campaign doggedly for her collection to be bought for the Australian public until her death at Macedon on 4 October 1922. A year later, the Rowan Collection Committee, composed of the organisers of the public campaign to purchase her work, was successful in arranging the sale of 947 watercolours to the Commonwealth Government for £5000.

Ceramics