Jean Nethercote Ola Cohn, ARCA

This portrait by Jean Nethercote (later Goldberg) of sculptor Carola ‘Ola’ Cohn (1892–1964) is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, under the title Ola Cohn.

Cohn was born in Bendigo, Victoria and studied sculpture at Swinburne in Melbourne before taking up a scholarship at the Royal College in London under renowned British sculptor Henry Moore. Cohn was a pioneer in Australia, fashioning colossal modernist sculptures, hand-carved in stone. Described by writer and friend Barbara Blackman as ‘a big flour bag of a woman, healthy as bread, strong as a millstone’, Cohn had a studio-home that was a meeting place for Melbourne’s artistic community. It was here that Jean Nethercote and Cohn met in 1956, becoming close friends. In her only Archibald Prize work, Nethercote alludes to Cohn’s vocation by including two sculptures, shown in the background.

Nethercote studied nursing at Royal Melbourne Hospital, graduating in 1948. In the 1950s, she became a passionate advocate for human rights and protested social injustice. Taking life classes with Cohn in the mid 1950s, Nethercote then studied at George Bell’s studio from 1956 to 1959. She later learned needlepoint lacemaking while working as a librarian at the Embroiderers’ Guild, Victoria, and went on to create idiosyncratic and witty lace pieces from everyday subjects, including newspaper advertisements for cars.