Olive Cotton

Olive Cotton (1911–2003) was one of Australia’s most significant photographers, with a career spanning six decades. She was an influential figure in the photography world in Sydney before her move to country New South Wales, where she continued working. Her photographs, often displaying modernist and Pictorialist sensibilities, range from portraits and landscapes to explorations of interiors and geometric shapes. However, Cotton always maintained that light itself was the most important subject of her work—her work is suffused with light, warmth and feeling.
The Olive Cotton collection at the National Library comprises 58 images, most of which are silver gelatin photographic prints, three interviews with Olive Cotton in the oral history collection, and the Papers of Olive Cotton in the manuscripts collection.
The Artists of the National Library of Australia series showcases the Library’s extensive pictures collection.
It is fortunate that the art she discovered in childhood was photography, for this can be done in two stages: first the taking of the pictures and then, perhaps years later, the slow, thoughtful process of printing in a proper darkroom.