A life-sized bronze statue of prominent Aboriginal leader Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue (1932-2024) was unveiled in Adelaide this week, on June 2, 2026.

Created by artist Robert Hannaford AM, it stands along the Tarntanya Wama / Elder Park walkway by the River Torrens.

The statue is to be the 1st of 6 of Aboriginal Australian leaders which will be built in the Elder Park area.

Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue was born to an Irish pastoralist and a Yunkunytjatjara woman in Indulkana, an Aboriginal community on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjra (APY) Lands, about 1110 km northwest of Adelaide, South Australia.

At the age of 2, Lowitja & 2 sisters were stolen from their mother.

O’Donoghue was renamed by the missionaries at the Colebrook Children’s Home in Quorn, a small town in the Flinders Rangers, 337 km north of Adelaide.

At the age of 16, she did what was expected of First Nations girls of her generation, she worked as a domestic for a family in Victor Habor, 84km south of Adelaide.

During the 1950s, Lowitja campaigned with others for the right of Aboriginal women to become nurses & in 1954, she was the first Aboriginal person to train as a nurse at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

In 2010, the Lowitja Institute for heath research was named in her honour.

https://www.indailysa.com.au/news/just-in/2026/06/02/lowitja-odonoghue-statue-unveiling-in-elder-park