Rhona Olive Harris

   Another name for Rhona was Pixie O'Harris.

  General Notes:

Name:Rona Olive Harris
Registration Year:1903
Registration Quarter:Oct-Nov-Dec
Registration district:Cardiff
Parishes for this Registration District:View Ecclesiastical Parishes associated with this Registration District
Inferred County:Glamorgan
Volume:11a
Page:374
FreeBMD. England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.

Name:Rona Olive Harris
Age in 1911:7
Estimated Birth Year:abt 1904
Relation to Head:Daughter
Gender:Female
Birth Place:Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales
Civil Parish:Sully and St Andrews
Search Photos:Search for 'Sully and St Andrews' in the UK City, Town and Village Photos collection
County/Island:Glamorgan
Country:Wales
Street address:Southmere Sully Glamorgan
Registration district:Cardiff
Registration District Number:588
Sub-registration district:St Nicholas
ED, institution, or vessel:20
Household schedule number:203
Piece:32197
Household Members:
NameAge
George Frederick Harris53
Olaf Lucas Harris2
Rosella Elizabeth Harris36
Ownwell Harris14
Ruby May Harris13
Karl Francis Harris11
Rosamond May Harris10
Marcus Rupert Harris8
Rona Olive Harris7
Esme Florence Alberta Harris3
Ancestry.com. 1911 Wales Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

Name:Rona Pratt
Year Range:1939 - 1948
Spouse:Bruce Waddell Fieldew Pratt
Series Description:B883: Army, 2nd Al F
National Archives of Australia; Canberra, Australia; Second Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1939-1947; Series: B883

O'Harris, Pixie (1903-1991)
By Robert Holden
Pixie O'Harris (1903-1991), children's book author and illustrator, was born Rona Olive Harris on 15 October 1903 in Cardiff, Wales, sixth of nine children of George Frederick Harris, artist, and his wife Rosetta Elizabeth, née Lucas. Educated at Sully Village School and Allensbank Girls' School, by the age of fourteen Rona was exhibiting drawings with the South Wales Art Society, of which her father was a chairman and secretary. In 1920, when the family migrated to Australia, Rona's endearing ways earned her the nickname of 'Pixie' from her fellow travellers. During a six-month stay in Perth, she exhibited fantasy works with the West Australian Society of Arts. Settling in Sydney in 1921 she joined John Sands Ltd as a commercial artist and later drew fashion illustrations for Anthony Hordern & Sons Ltd. It was during these early years that a printer's error'97the addition of an apostrophe to her middle initial'97suggested the surname 'O'Harris,' which she soon adopted as a nom de plume. Although she studied briefly at Julian Ashton's Sydney Art School, she remained a largely self-taught artist.

O'Harris made her publishing debut with illustrations for Maud Liston's Cinderella's Party in 1923. Two years later The Pixie O. Harris Fairy Book showed a distinct advance in compositional strength and maturity of line. Here, for the first time, was clear evidence of her own later claim that major English fantasy illustrators like Arthur Rackham were her 'wonderful source of inspiration' (O'Harris 1986, 136). It is true that Rackham's puckish humour invested her best work.

On 16 July 1928 at the Congregational House, Watsons Bay, Sydney, O'Harris married Bruce Waddell Fieldew Pratt, a wool buyer. Her husband was a younger brother of the artist Douglas Pratt; later he was the editor-in-chief of the Australian Encyclopaedia. Settling at Watsons Bay, the couple had three daughters. From her home studio, O'Harris became a prolific contributor of poems, for adults and children, and of illustrated short stories, for children. Her work appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines, including the Bulletin, Aussie, the New South Wales School Magazine, and the Victorian School Paper. She also produced large quantities of bookplates, Christmas and other cards, and stationery.

The technical control in O'Harris's pen and ink work, particularly in easily overlooked vignettes, marks her as a worthy successor in Australia to Ruby Lindsay. In 1935 her Pearl Pinkie and Sea Greenie became the most lavish children's book published by Angus & Robertson Ltd during the Depression. Selections of her work from school magazines were issued as the Pixie O'Harris Story Book (1940, revised in 1948 and 1956) and the Pixie O'Harris Gift Book (1953). During the 1940s her output was further diversified by her Poppy Treloar trilogy (1941-47).

O'Harris belonged to the second generation of Australian fantasy illustrators, which included Jean Elder and Peg Maltby; she 'captured the last of the waning enthusiasm for fairies . . . just when Nan Chauncy was about to launch a new realism in children's books' (Lees and Macintyre 1993, 325). Besides her books, O'Harris is best remembered for the many children's murals she painted in schools, hospitals, day nurseries, and orphanages. A portrait of her by Garrett Kingsley was a finalist for the Archibald prize in 1952.

O'Harris's exhibiting career had begun with her inclusion in the Julian Ashton School retrospective in 1933, followed by a joint exhibition with Joyce Abbott, at the Wynyard Book Club, Sydney, in 1937. In the 1960s she revived this exhibition profile and maintained it until the mid-1980s. By this time she had created one of the longest-running careers of any Australian children's book illustrator, selling hundreds of thousands of copies of her books. She was a household name in Australia together with such fellow illustrators as May Gibbs and Ida Rentoul Outhwaite.

Appointed MBE in 1976, O'Harris was awarded both the Queen's coronation medal (1953) and the Queen's silver jubilee medal (1977). By the last decades of her long life, when gentle fantasy had become passé, both her failing eyesight and her declining inspiration compromised her work. She produced two volumes of autobiography: Was it Yesterday? (1983) and Our Small Safe World: Recollections of a Welsh Childhood (1986). Predeceased by her husband and survived by her daughters, she died on 17 November 1991 at Lindfield, Sydney, and was cremated. In 1993 her nephew, Rolf Harris, and her younger brother Olaf, painted a mural at the Prince of Wales Hospital, which they dedicated to her memory.

Life Summary [details]
Alternative Names
Harris, Rhona Olive
Pratt, Rhona Olive
Birth
15 October 1903
Cardiff, South Glamorgan, Wales

Death
17 November 1991
Lindfield, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Cause of Death
heart disease

Cultural Heritage
Welsh
Education
Julian Ashton School (Sydney)
Occupation
autobiographer/memoirist
children's author
illustrator
poet
short story writer
Awards
Queen Elizabeth II coronation medal (1953)
Member of the Order of the British Empire
Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal
Workplaces
Anthony Hordern & Sons Ltd
John Sands Ltd

Research edited by Samuel Furphy
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/oharris-pixie-16755 (Accessed 27 Jul 2018)
Robert Holden, 'O'Harris, Pixie (1903'961991)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/oharris-pixie-16755/text28651, published online 2014, accessed online 27 July 2018.

Name:Bruce Waddell Fieldew Pratt
Gender:Male
Electoral Year:1963
Subdistrict:Vaucluse
State:New South Wales
District:Wentworth
Country:Australia
Residential Address: 106 Hopetoun Ave, Vaucluse
Occupation: Wool Buyer
Others at the same address
Pratt, Rona Olive- hd
Ancestry.com. Australia, Electoral Rolls, 1903-1980 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.

Rhona married Bruce Waddell Fieldew Pratt, son of Frederick Vicary Pratt and Agnes Elizabeth Waddell, on 22 Aug 1929 in New South Wales, Australia.³⁷³ (Bruce Waddell Fieldew Pratt was born on 14 Apr 1902 in Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia.)

  Marriage Notes:

PIXIE O. HARRIS MARRIED
Housekeeping And Art Her Hobbies
SATURDAY Journal readers will remember the exquisite black and white work of Pixie O. Harris that made its debut in the week-end paper.
Interesting news comes from Sydney of Pixie, who is now Mrs Bruce Pratt, and living in a flat at Watson's Bay. Her husband is connected with the wool trade. She is very happy, and manages to sandwich her household duties between executing the many commissions which still come her way. Her art has developed wonderfully, and she is as keen on it as ever.
Her little sister Pat is living with them, continuing her art studies, and some day will collaborate in a book which they hope their 'Fairy Publisher' (Mr. Morley Bath) will publish.
If this happens it will be Pixie's Fairy Tale completed, for we all remember the little dedicatory verse which Pixie wrote in her Fairy Book '97 'To my sister Pat.'
Dear little Pat, with eyes of blue, I dedicate this book to you.
We've often wandered hand in hand through the green door to fairyland.
Though fairies nowadays are few, this is one fairy tale come true.
1929 'PIXIE O. HARRIS MARRIED', The Register News-Pictorial (Adelaide, SA : 1929 - 1931), 22 August, p. 26. , viewed 27 Jul 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article53483252