Opening of the steam engine for sawing wood for the new kitchen, Alpha 1884

Neville-Rolfe’s informal observations of daily activities reveal interpersonal relationships, even when their focus is on the landscape. She often journeyed to the outskirts of Alpha Station with her brothers and other workers — in one carefully detailed image, we see the ‘opening of a steam engine’ deployed to cut wood for the station’s new kitchen. In 1884, water was scarce; her paintings Dam at the water hole and Sinking a well at Alpha in the dried up creek record the settlers’ efforts to access what little water was available during a difficult drought.

Among the images of toil and husbandry, Neville-Rolfe also captured quieter moments of rest. Our camp, Rainmore shows the bush site where her brother Karl (Charles) is making Johnny cakes, while her sister-in-law Kunie (Kunigunda) ‘dries her hat, wet with dew’. An Indigenous stockman ‘brings the quarts of water for tea’ to a fire made in the burned-out trunk of an old gum tree. Through the trees in the background hop three kangaroos, seemingly unconcerned by the campers.