Obituaries Australia

Ailsa O'Connor's death on February 3, one week after her 59th birthday, is a loss to the CPA, the Peace Movement, the Women's Movement and to progressive artists. Speaking at her funeral, Ruth Crow said Ailsa's was a "many-sided life".

Ailsa studied and taught art in Melbourne in the late thirties when she became involved in the struggle against Fascism. She was the only woman exhibiting in the 1942 Anti-Fascist Art Exhibition.

She joined the Communist Party in 1944 and remained an active member throughout her life. Thirty years ago she was one of the founders of the Union of Australian Women in Victoria.

During her life Ailsa combined her commitment to politics with her considerable talent as an artist. She exhibited with the Socialist Realists in the fifties and sixties. She used her art always to emphasise the struggles of people of all ages and nationalities, and to counter the fears and prejudices fed by reactionary Cold War governments.

Ailsa was in poor health over the last ten years, but she threw herself into the emerging Women's Liberation Movement, finding in it a new meaning and purpose for her work. She wrote and spoke many times on women and art and encouraged many progressive young artists, particularly women.

She was an active member of the St Kilda branch of the CPA in its many campaigns around housing, traffic, prices and peace. She was well-known in St Kilda and was a source of support and inspiration especially to her younger comrades.

Ailsa's paintings, drawings, sculpture and posters, many done to assist struggles against war and exploitation, will ensure that she is remembered, as will her many friends in the Left.

The CPA and Tribune extend sympathy to her children, Megan and Sean, and daughter-in-law, Janet. A longer article on Ailsa O'Connor will appear in a future Tribune.