O’Harris, Pixie, 1903-1991
The Pixie O. Harris fairy book : stories and verse /
by Lynette Yardley, Eva Lawton, Gwen M. Cock. Pixie O. Harris ; illustrations
in color, half-tone and line by Pixie O. Harris. (Adelaide : Rigby, [1925])
‘Pixie O’Harris’ was the pseudonym of Rhona Olive Pratt nee Harris. At the age of 14, she was a member of the
South West Art Society in Wales. The Harris family migrated to Australia in
1920. It was on the voyage out that she adopted the name ‘Pixie’,
disliking the name Rhona and having been referred to as ‘the Welsh pixie.’ A
change to her surname began after a printer at the Sydney Morning Herald accidentally
added an apostrophe to her second initial. Pixie undertook art training at
the Julian Ashton School in Sydney. She wrote and illustrated more than forty
books and painted many murals in succeeding years, until she was well in her
80s. From the 1920s on, Pixie O’Harris wrote commercially successful
fairy stories, although they reflect more of a European influence than the
output of some of her contemporaries.
