Ellis Rowan

Marian Ellis Rowan (1848–1922), known as Ellis Rowan, was an Australian painter of flowers, birds, butterflies and other wildlife. She had no formal training, yet became one of the best-known Australian botanical artists of her time. Rowan travelled widely in search of subjects, often painting plants in the places where they grew. She made journeys in Australia and New Zealand, and visited North America, where she collaborated with the writer Alice Lounsberry. She made her first trip to New Guinea in 1916 and several more afterwards, and caught malaria on these expeditions. Her work was shown at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and in 1920 she held a solo exhibition in Sydney of about a thousand works. Her books include A Flower Hunter in Queensland and New Zealand (1898) and, with Lounsberry, A Guide to the Wild Flowers (1899). After her death in October 1922 the Australian government bought 952 of her paintings for £5,000, and the National Library of Australia now holds 919 of them.