Dora Ohlfsen

Dora Ohlfsen, "The Awakening of Australian Art" (detail), 1907. Three bronze medallions, each 29.5 cm part a diameter; 29.5 cm part b diameter; 5.2 cm part c diameter. Collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
Image courtesy of Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Bio

Adela Dora Ohlfsen-Bagge (22 August 1869 – 7 February 1948), known professionally as Dora Ohlfsen, was an Australian sculptor and art medallist. Born in Ballarat in 1869, she left Australia in 1886 and lived most of her life in Rome. Her first prominent work was a bronze medallion, The Awakening of Australian Art (1907), which won an award at the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition in London and was purchased for the Petit Palais in Paris. In 1948 Ohlfsen and her lifelong partner, Russian countess Hélène de Kuegelgen (Elena von Kügelgen), were found dead in their apartment in Rome as a result of a gas leak. The police deemed the death accidental, but there were speculations that it was suicide. The women were buried together in the city's non-Catholic cemetery, and friends packed up the contents of Ohlfsen's studio, which have never been traced. Twenty-five of Ohlfsen's works are known to have survived, out of at least 121.