Olive Rush (June 10, 1873 near Fairmount, Indiana – August 20, 1966 in Santa Fe, New Mexico) was a painter, illustrator, muralist, and an important pioneer in Native American art education.

She spent the next year in Europe studying British and French painters, and finished her art education at the Boston Museum School in 1912.

Despite the relative isolation of Santa Fe, Rush continued to contribute to national and international shows over the next thirty years, which activity culminated in a retrospective at the Museum of New Mexico Art Gallery in 1957.

[12] Olive Rush was commissioned by the Section of Fine Arts to complete painted murals for several public buildings in the American West.

Lastly, she completed two frescos, Cotton Industry and Farming and Natural History of Plant and Animal Life for the Foster Hall Biology Building at New Mexico State University.

Some of her lesser known works are held by her closest living relatives, the Rush and Beasley family, in various parts of Indiana, the Carolinas and the West Coast, as well as Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico.