Olive Ashworth

Textile length: Reef rhythm 1971

Born in Brisbane in 1915, Olive Ashworth was educated at the private girls’ school Somerville House, where she was taught art by Enid Dickson. After the death of her father, the family moved to Melbourne, where she studied commercial art at the Art Training Institute, completing the course by correspondence on her return to Brisbane. She ran Burns Philp’s art department before starting her own business in 1945, and Olive Ashworth Publicity Services lasted for over 20 years.¹

Ashworth became involved in the promotion of Queensland’s burgeoning tourist industry, designing brochures for Surfers Paradise and the Reef Islands, and later for Townsville, Innisfail and Mackay. Inspired by the tropical north, and especially by the marine life of the Great Barrier Reef, she started to design her own textiles. In 1958-60, she was commissioned by a Swedish firm to produce a design based on the Great Barrier Reef, which retailed successfully in Europe. In 1971, she established her own design firm, which produced many furnishing and fashion fabrics.

Olive Ashworth is one of the few Australians, and the only Queensland-based artist, to contribute significantly to textile design in the 1950s.

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