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Pink, Olive M.

Also known as
Pink, O. M. (Olive Muriel) (1884-1975)
Pink, Olive Muriel (1884-1975)
Occupation
anthropologist; art teacher; Indigenous rights activist/supporter; painter; public servant
Persistent Identifier
http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-473797

Biographies

Australian Women's Register

Olive Pink was a botanical artist and anthropologist who campaigned for the rights of Aboriginal people. She was one of few women anthropologists working in a male dominated field in the 1930s and 1940s. Pink positioned herself as an expert on Aboriginal people and campaigned from this basis in her criticism of government officials, missionaries and pastoralists.

Educated in art at Hobart Technical College. Pink worked at the Public Works Department and later the Railways Commission of New South Wales. She studied anthropology at Sydney University with the Workers' Educational Association and became secretary to the Anthropological Society of NSW. In 1926 & 1927 she travelled to Ooldea on the Transcontinental Line, SA. There she created many of her early drawings of desert flora.

Pink spent much time in the Northern Territory, living first with Arrernte and Warlpiri people and settling eventually in Alice Springs. She was a prolific correspondent, writing many letters to government departments and the press, particularly to represent her beliefs about Aboriginal people and her views on their better treatment by the government. Historian Julie Marcus suggests that Pink eventually lost faith in the potential of Anthropology to assist Aboriginal people, and abandoned the discipline later in life.

In 1955 she applied for the reservation of an area of land on the eastern bank of the Todd River as a flora reserve. In 1956 the Australian Arid Regions Flora Reserve of 20 hectares was gazetted. Pink and her gardener Johnny Jambijimba Yannarilyi developed the garden, where Pink lived until her death. The garden was then renamed the Olive Pink Flora Reserve, and now contains over 300 of Central Australia's plant species.

View the full record at Australian Women's Register

Australian Dictionary of Biography Online

PINK, OLIVE MURIEL (1884-1975), artist, Aboriginal-rights activist, anthropologist and gardener, was born on 17 March 1884 in Hobart, elder surviving child of Robert Stuart Pink (d.1907), warehouseman, and his wife Eveline Fanny Margaret, née Kerr. Educated at Hobart Girls' High School, Olive studied art at the Hobart Technical School with the sculptor Benjamin Sheppard before joining the staff as a teacher in 1909.

View the full record at Australian Dictionary of Biography Online

Related people and organisations

Resources

Selected resources (30)

Australian Women's Register

  1. Spirit Ancestors in a Northern Aranda Horde Country
    Olive Pink
    [1933]
  2. Significant Tasmanian Women: Olive Pink (1884-1975), Early Anthropologist, Aboriginal Rights Activist and Botanical Artist
    Women Tasmania
    [2001]
  3. The Landowners in the Northern Division of the Aranda Tribe
    Olive Pink
    [1936]
  4. Pink, Olive Muriel (1884-1975)
    Marcus, Julie
    [2006]
    Published: Australian National University
  5. Talkin' up to the white woman : Aboriginal women and feminism
    Moreton-Robinson, Aileen
    [2000]
    Published: University of Queensland Press, St Lucia
  6. The Indomitable Miss Pink: A Life in Anthropology
    Marcus, Julie
    [2001]
    Published: UNSW Press
  7. Yours truly, Olive M. Pink
    Marcus, Julie
    [1991c]
    Published: Olive Pink Society, Canberra
  8. Imagined destinies : Aboriginal Australians and the doomed race theory, 1880-1939
    Russell McGregor
    [1997]
    Published: Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic
  9. Where are the Women in Australian science?
    Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre
    [2003]
    Published: Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre
  10. Bulletin of the Olive Pink Society
    Olive Pink Society and Research Centre for Women's Studies, University of Adelaide
    [1989-1999]
  11. 200 Australian Women: A Redress Anthology
    Radi, Heather
    [1988]
    Published: Women's Redress Press, Sydney
  12. Papers of E.W.P. (Ernest William Pearson) Chinnery (1887-1972)
    National Library of Australia
    Published: National Library of Australia
  13. The Beauty, Simplicity and Honour of Truth: Olive Pink in the 1940s
    Marcus, Julie
    [1993]
    Published: Melbourne University Press
  14. Guide to the Norman B. Tindale Archives:
    South Australian Museum
    [2000]
    Published: South Australian Museum
  15. First in Their Field: Women and Australian Anthropology
    Marcus, Julie; Lepervanche, Marie de; McBryde, Isabel; Prior, Mary Ellen Murray; White, Isobel; Morris, Miranda; O'Gorman, Anne; Marcus, Julie and Cheater, Christine
    [1993]
    Published: Melbourne University Press, Melbourne
  16. Papers of Sir Paul Hasluck (1905- )
    National Library of Australia
    [2001]
    Published: National Library of Australia
  17. Miss Olive Pink. Application for permit to enter Aboriginal Reserves General Correspondence with
    [1940 - 1941]
    National Archives of Australia, Northern Territory Office
    1941/53
  18. Pink,Olive Muriel botanical drawings
    [1930 - 1960]
    Sketches,in pencil and crayon, of the flora of the arid regions of South Australia and around Alice Springs c1930 and 1957-60 [64 items, P.6].
    64 sketches
    University of Tasmania Library, Special/Rare Collection
    P.6
  19. Correspondence between Pink and T.D. Campbell,
    [Objects : 1935 - 1938]
    Correspondence c1938 between Pink and T.D. Campbell, a member of the Board for Anthropological Research, University of Adelaide; correspondence c1937-9 between Pink and J.B. Cleland, University of Adelaide; correspondence c1935-7 between Pink and J.B. Cleland concerning a controversy over research in Western Australia and Tasmania; also held is a wooden tjuringa [A.D. 15].
    South Australian Museum Archives
    A.D. 15
  20. Native Flora Reserve Olive Pink
    [1970 - 1978]
    National Archives of Australia, Northern Territory Office
    1971/139
  21. Records of Olive Pink
    [1946 - 1955]
    Microfilm copies of personal and subject files (CRS A6119 and CRS A6122) - ASIO Files
    National Archives of Australia, National Office
    19
  22. Flora and Fauna Reserve. Alice Springs (Miss Olive Pink - General correspondence)
    [1965 - 1978]
    National Archives of Australia, Northern Territory Office
    1969/1967
  23. Miss Olive Pink /secular Sanctuary Granites Tanami District
    [1935 - 1945]
    National Archives of Australia, Northern Territory Office
    8/30/0
  24. Alice Springs Native Flora Reserve Olive Pink
    [1958 - 1970]
    National Archives of Australia, Northern Territory Office
    1958/204
  25. Flora and fauna reserve Alice Springs - Miss Olive PINK - General correspondence
    [1958 - 1961]
    National Archives of Australia, Northern Territory Office
    1959/328
  26. Olive Pink Papers
    [Correspondence : 1942 - 1972]
    Correspondence sent to Wallis Foggarty and Co., 1942, NTRS 1862; letter card sent to Senator B. Kilgariff, and diary notes, 1972, NTRS 880.
    Northern Territory Archives Service, Darwin Branch
    NTRS 3
  27. Papers of Mary Wright 1903-1990
    [1886 - 1985]
    Mary Wright's correspondence, files, pamphlets and memorabilia relating to the Union of Australian Women; photographs and a poster. Records of the anthropologist, Olive Pink. Minute book of the Board of Delegates on the St Marys (building) Project, 1956. Also family papers and diaries.
    13.45 m
    The Noel Butlin Archives Centre, ANU Archives Program
    held
  28. Olive Pink - Correspondence
    [1925 - 1989]
    1. Curtin constituency correspondence files, 1950-1969. 2. Pamphlets, reports, speeches, leaflets, statements and printed ephemera relating to Australian politics, economics, post War planning and reconstruction, religion, defence and regional security, foreign relations and international affairs, immigration, education, law, the media, public health, geography, aviation and history. 3. Collection of historical source documents on Australian Aboriginal welfare and the Northern Territory, 1945-1963. These include: reports; conference papers; press statements; development plans; Ministerial notes; correspondence with Charles Duguid, Olive Pink and Lionel Rose; and publications on agriculture, animal industries, mining and other subjects. 4. Ten bound volumes of articles, speeches and broadcasts by Hasluck on foreign affairs, the United Nations, politics and government, the Northern Territory, Aboriginal welfare and other subjects, 1925-1989. The speeches include diplomatic, political, Ministerial and Vice-Regal orations and addresses.
    6.1 m, 40 Boxes
    National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection
    MS 5274
  29. Olive Pink - Correspondence
    [1897 - 1971]
    Papers comprise official, personal & academic correspondence, diaries, photos, patrol reports, field notebooks, conference papers, lectures, broadcasts, articles, anthropological writings & research material, administration handbooks & ordinances, publications on anthropology, language, education & United Nations. Papers relate to Chinnery's career in Papua & New Guinea as Patrol Officer, Government Anthropologist, Director Dept of District Services & Native Affairs, Director Native Affairs & Commonwealth Adviser on Native Affairs in Aust. Papers relating to Chinnery's association with Far Eastern Liaison Office during World War II, South Seas Commission Conference 1947, United Nations missions to Africa & aspects of PNG including history, exploration, anthropology, genealogy, language, education, health, missions, crimes & discipline, native rights, mining, trade & pre-war wartime & post-war administration. Correspondents include: Staniforth Smith, John Taylor, C.L.A. Abbott, Bill Harney, A.P. Elkin, Theodor Strehlow, Camilla Wedgwood, Olive Pink, Baldwin Spencer, A.C. Haddon, Margaret Mead.
    8.43 m
    National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection
    MS 766
  30. T. D. (Thomas Draper) Campbell 1893-1967 Papers
    [Correspondence, Photographs, Tape Reels, Papers, Notes : c. 1920 - c. 1960]
    Correspondence, documents, photographs, tracings, cine film, sound recordings, and notes, concerning Aborigines of Central Australia, particularly aspects of material culture and physical anthropology. Includes some reference to Olive Pink.
    3 m
    South Australian Museum Archives
    AA52

Australian Dictionary of Biography Online

  1. 'Pink, Olive Muriel (1884 - 1975)' - Australian Dictionary of Biography
    Julie Marcus
    [2002]
    Published: Melbourne University Press
    Series: Volume 16
    pp 4-5.

Resources About Olive M. Pink (16)

  1. Bulletin (Olive Pink Society)
    [Periodical : 1989-2009]
    Available online (access conditions apply)
  2. Yours truly, Olive M. Pink / Julie Marcus
    Marcus, Julie
    [Book : 1991]
  3. The indomitable Miss Pink : a life in anthropology / Julie Marcus
    Marcus, Julie
    [Book : 2001]
  4. Fierce the story of Olive Pink / [presented by] Tracks Inc. ; directed by Tim Newth and David McMicken
    [Video : 2001]
  5. Olive Pink : arid zone botanic garden, Olive Pink Flora Reserve
    [Book : 1995]
  6. Indomitable Miss Pink, The : A Life in Anthropology / Marcus, Julie
    Marcus, Julie
    [Book : 2005]
  7. Legends of the Red Heart : twenty-six heroes of inland Australia / Shirley Brown
    Brown, Shirley
    [Book : 2002]
  8. Olive Pink in Central Australia : a talk given by Professor Julie Marcus at the Olive Pink botanical gardens / 8ccc community radio
    Marcus, Julie
    [Sound : 2000]
  9. Alice Springs, its history & the people who made it / Peter Donovan
    Donovan, P. F. (Peter Francis), 1945-
    [Book : 1980-1988]
  10. Olive Pink Flora Reserve : explanation of origins, adaptations and uses of many interesting central Australian plants
    [Book : 1980-1989]

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  1. Website: All about Olive [Life of Riley]
    www.allaboutolive.com.au
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  2. Website: Australian Women's Archives Project
    www.womenaustralia.info
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  1. Wedgwood, Camilla H., (Camilla Hildegarde). 1901-1955
    academic; anthropologist; army officer; college warden
    ... , Olive Pink, Baldwin Spencer, A.C. Haddon, Margaret Mead. 8.43 m ...
  2. Marcus, Julie.
    ... Marcus, Julie Yours truly, Olive M. Pink Canberra Olive Pink Society 1991c ...
  3. Wright, Mary, (Hazel Mary).
    ... Women; photographs and a poster. Records of the anthropologist, Olive Pink. Minute book of the Board of ...
  1. AFTERNOON PARTY
    The Courier-Mail (Brisbane,..., Thursday 18 January 1934 p 23
    ... AFTERNOON PARTY In honour of Miss Olive M'Keon, who will leave shortly for Toowoomba, and Miss B. ... yesterday after- noon. The table was beautified with baskets of pink hydrangea and tulle. Other guests ... L. Taylor, M. Bolton, and A, Bllllmr. ... 73 words
  2. SPORTING TELEGRAM. SYDNEY, WEDNESDAY.
    The Argus (Melbourne,..., Thursday 11 December 1890 p 9
    ... SPORTING TELEGRAM. SYDNEY, WEDNESDAY. The Driving-park pink Club held a meeting to-day with w ith the following results:—Maiden Trot Race.—Mr. R. W. Woodham's Lace-Mi It W M ootlhuins Constant Maid ... park Handicap - Mi V Cobctafts Olive Club Handicap - Mrs ¡Millers! ii) ... 77 words
  3. DRESS AT THE ROWING CLUB BALL.
    The West Australian (Perth,..., Wednesday 18 August 1897 p 2
    ... Olive ^Walker, whiten cash- mere lace and pearls ; ..Miss Donohue, pale green crepon, pink cinffom;and ... ; Miss Coombs, cream crepon, turquoise silk ; Miss Sölminster, pale pink crepe de chine, olive ... DRESS AT THE ROWING CLUB BALL. "SYLVIA[?]) St. George's Hall, always [?]m in which to hold social ... 418 words