Dame Annabelle Rankin

Dame Annabelle Jane Mary Rankin DBE was the second woman member of the Australian Senate, the first woman from Queensland to sit in the Parliament of Australia, the first woman to have a Federal Portfolio and the first woman to be appointed head of a foreign mission.

She attended secondary school at The Glennie Memorial School in Toowoomba and was well known in the community for her public service through the CWA, Girl Guides, Red Cross and YWCA.

Rankin was the first woman appointed as Opposition Whip in the Senate and, following the election of the Menzies government in 1949, also served as Government Whip in the Senate. In 1966 she was Minister for Housing in Menzies’ first ministry. From 1968 to 1971 she was a joint ‘Father’ of the Senate. She resigned from the Senate in 1971 and was appointed High Commissioner to New Zealand, a post she held to 1974.

Following her retirement, she returned to Brisbane where she continued to be involved in voluntary organisations. In addition to this portrait, other documents regarding the significant impact of this woman on Queensland were donated to The Women’s College by her sister, Miss Jean Rankin.

Lola McCausland was well known as a portrait painter in Australia and internationally in the 1950s and 1960s. Recognised for her skill in drawing while a student at The Glennie Memorial School in Toowoomba and at St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School in Brisbane, her early employment was in the art department of The Courier-Mail.

Her first professional and technical training was gained during three years with Brisbane artist, Carolyn Barker, and her early focus was on pastel and watercolour studies of nudes and ballet dancers, frequently sketching at ballet schools and backstage at performances. She exhibited in Toowoomba, Brisbane and Sydney in the early 1950s before travelling to the UK in April 1953 to develop her skills in portraiture.

In London, she studied at the Chelsea School of Art (now the Chelsea College of Arts) and shared a studio and took private lessons with Philip Lambe, a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. During her 18 months in London, she sold some 50 ballet pictures and secured 10 portrait commissions, including the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Lord Brookeborough.

In her very productive career, she estimated that she completed more than a hundred paintings for clients in the USA and countless portraits for Australian clients, often of children. She was also commissioned to create portraits of many prominent Australians including Dame Annabelle Rankin, Sir John Lavarack (former Governor of Queensland), and the men associated with the establishment and growth of Mount Isa.