Person

Fiveash, Rosa Catherine (1854 - 1938)

Born
22 July 1854
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Died
13 February 1938
North Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Occupation
Botanical artist

Summary

Rosa Fiveash trained as an artist at the Adelaide School of Art, gaining her teaching certificate in 1888. She taught for many years but is best known as a highly-skilled botanical artist. Her work illustrated the publications of some of South Australia 's most renowned scientists. The first was The Forest flora of South Australia (1882 - 1890) by John E. Brown, the South Australian Conservator of Forests. Fiveash enjoyed a 30-year collaboration with Richard S. Rogers, illustrating a number of his works on South Australian orchids. Her work was also included in John B. Cleland's books on fungi. Edward Stirling, Director of the South Australian Institute, used her talents to illustrate some of his papers, including his description of a newly discovered marsupial mouse. A number of her paintings were presented to the South Australian Government in 1900. These are now in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, as are the paintings she donated to the Public Library of South Australia in 1937.

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Details

Chronology

1888
Education - Teaching certificate, Adelaide School of Art
1937
Life event - Presented paintings to Public Library of South Australia

Related Corporate Bodies

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

  • Australian Botanists - Biographies, MS 064; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

  • McCarthy, Gavan; Morgan, Helen; Smith, Ailie; van den Bosch, Alan, Where are the Women in Australian Science?, Exhibition of the Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, First published 2003 with lists updated regularly edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, 2003, https://eoas.info/exhibitions/wisa/wisa.html. Details
  • McCarthy, Gavan; Smith, Ailie; Moje, Christine; Rigby, Rebecca, The Study of Australian Eucalypts, eScholarship Research Centre, 2013, http://www.eoas.info/eucalypts/index.html. Details

Books

  • Brown, John Ednie, The forest flora of South Australia (Adelaide: Government Printer, 1882), 94 pp. http://nla.gov.au/nla.aus-vn2282454. Details
  • Cleland, John Burton; illustrated by Rosa Fiveash, Toadstools and mushrooms and other larger fungi of South Australia, 2 vols (Adelaide: Government Printer, 1934-1935). Details
  • Fiveash, Rosa, Australian orchids: a collection of paintings by Rosa Catherine Fiveash; with text by Noel Lothian (Adelaide: Rigby, 1974), 149 pp. Details
  • Olsen, Penny, Collecting Ladies: Ferdinand von Mueller and Women Botanical Artists (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2012), 248 pp. Details
  • Rogers, R. S.; illustrated by Rosa Fiveash, An introduction to the study of South Australian orchids (Adelaide: Government Printer, 1911), 63 pp. Details
  • Wrigley, J.; and Fagg, M., Eucalypts: a Celebration (Crows Nest Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2010), 344 pp. Details

Book Sections

  • Gibberd, Joyce, 'Rosa Fiveash (1854-1938) botanical artist' in 200 Australian Women: A Redress Anthology, Heather Radi, ed. (Sydney: Women's Redress Press Inc, 1988). Details
  • Sims, Eric B., 'Fiveash, Rosa Catherine (1854-1938), botanical artist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 8: 1891 - 1939 Cl-Gib, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1981), pp. 517-518. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/fiveash-rosa-catherine-6184. Details

Edited Books

  • Radi, H. ed., 200 Australian Women: a Redress Anthology (Sydney: Women's Redress Press Inc, 1988), 268 pp. Details

Journal Articles

  • Pescott, E. E., 'Rosa Fiveash: flower painter', The Victorian naturalist, 54 (1) (1938), 199. Details
  • Pescott, Edward E., 'Australian orchidology', The Victorian naturalist, 49 (1932), 196-9. Details
  • Sims, E., 'Rosa Catherine Fiveash', South Australian Naturalist, 49 (3) (1975), 44-47. Details
  • Sims, Eric, 'Rosa Fiveash: a supplement', South Australian naturalist, 55 (1) (1980), 12-4. Details
  • Stirling, E. C.; illustrated by Rosa Fiveash, 'Description of a new genus an species of marsupial mouse "Notoryctes typhlops"', Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 14 (1891), 154-87, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/26249221. Details

Resources

Resource Sections

See also

  • Carr, D. J., 'The contribution of women to Australian Botany' in People and Plants in Australia, D. J. Carr and S. G. M. Carr, eds (Sydney: Academic Press, 1981), pp. 325-32. Details
  • Fagg, Murray, 'Fiveash, Rosa Catherine (1854 - 1938)', Australian Plant Collectors and Illustrators, Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria (CHAH), 2010, https://anbg.gov.au/biography/fiveash-rosa.html. Details

McCarthy, G.J., Moje, C. and Helen Cohn

Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 16 July 2024

EOAS ID: biogs/P001058b.htm

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