Lot 10

Australian Galleries, Melbourne (label verso)
Private collection, Melbourne
Thence by descent

Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 10 - 27 October 1990, cat. no. 8

Margaret Olley is one of Australia's most significant still life and interior scene painters and prominently stands as a luminary in Art History. Amongst her many accomplishments, she had over ninety solo exhibitions in her lifetime and drew inspiration from her home, studio and the beauty of the everyday objects she gathered around her. Olley's canvases are a symphony of colour and light that resonate warmth, vitality, and an ineffable sense of joy that will stand the testament of time. Olley is renowned for her richly textured and vibrant depictions of still life and intimate interiors. Unaffected by the ebbs and flows of art trends, she focused on capturing her immediate surroundings, delving into everyday scenes that mirrored her fascination with the personal and intimate aspects of life, which she captures so majestically.

Born in 1923 in Queensland, Australia, Olley's journey as an artist traversed the landscapes of Impressionism, still life, and portraiture, leaving an indelible mark on Australian art. Olley's artistic odyssey was marked by a profound sensitivity to the world around her. Olley's paintings are imbued with a sense of immediacy and intimacy, inviting viewers into her world of domestic interiors, sun dappled landscapes, and vibrant still life compositions.

Geleznowia and Apples c.1990, is a wonderful example of Olley's mastery of the still life genre, for which she remains widely celebrated. Central to Olley's oeuvre is her fascination with the play of light and shadow, captured with consummate skill and nuance. With her paintbrush Olley transforms mundane objects-a vase of flowers, a bowl of apples, a ginger pot, a sunlit room- to luminous embodiments of beauty and grace, instilled with significance. In this painting, she has suffused the scene with a golden glow, with light appearing to shine across the surface of each carefully arranged object on the tabletop.

A recurring motif employed by Olley that is evident in this painting is her frequent use of a piece of cloth positioned amongst her still life's; creating a sense of softness and dimension to her paintings. Typically, these textiles are casually draped over the edge of a table, as seen in this painting, with their ends disappearing beyond the frame of the picture. This approach elongates the composition, introducing depth and a sense of spontaneity, while preventing the arrangement from seeming overly contrived. In her painting Geleznowia and Apples, Olley further enhances this effect by utilising striped patterned fabric in the foreground, thereby introducing additional texture and warmth to the scene, harmonising the grey-teal colour of the central jug, against the rich palette of greens and yellows, contrasted by touches of cerulean blue and burgundy.

Olley's unwavering dedication to still life painting was intentional and well-informed, as she travelled widely and possessed extensive knowledge of both the local and international art scenes. The writer Christine France aptly encapsulates this notion when she remarks: "these are not the domestic objects of a woman artist forced to paint her immediate surroundings, they are the objects of the traveller, the collector and above all the artist".(1) There is a profound sense of power and freedom in Olley's choice of subject matter, as painting her surroundings enabled her to remain true to herself.

Barry Pearce accurately encapsulates Olley's ardent love for the still life genre when he wrote: "…to live with a Margaret Olley painting is to experience the transfiguration of a passionate, highly focused personality into art. In her paintings, the space surrounding each bowl of fruit, each vase of flowers, and through which the eye traverses a cacophony of surfaces such as patterned carpets, modulated walls, and cluttered tabletops, resounds with her presence. These are reflections of the things she loves, and which embellished the centre of how she prefers her existence to be."(2)

Throughout her long and prolific career, Olley remained true to her singular vision, shunning trends in favour of a more timeless aesthetic. Through her still life and interior scenes, her work speaks to the enduring power of art to uplift and inspire, reminding us to pause and marvel at the beauty that surrounds us in the everyday.

At the heart of Olley's artistic practice was a deep reverence for the act of painting itself. Margaret Olley found the process of creation as a form of meditation, a way of connecting with the world and capturing its fleeting beauty. Her paintings possess a remarkable immediacy and spontaneity, as if each brushstroke were an expression of pure, unadulterated joy.

Amanda North
Art Specialist

(1) France, C., Margaret Olley, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1990, p.51
(2) Pearce, B., 'Margaret Olley Retrospective', State of the Arts, Sydney, August - November 1996, p.5

Reproduced with the permission of the Margaret Olley Art Trust and Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane