Remembering Margaret Olley

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Tags: art, Margaret Olley, philanthropy, summer-2011, UQ Art Museum

Margaret Olley in conversation (2009) from The University of Queensland on Vimeo.

The University of Queensland joined with the Australian arts community earlier this year to mark the passing of singular artist and philanthropist Margaret Olley AC.

Awarded a UQ honorary Doctor of Letters in 1999 in recognition of 50 years of service to the arts and philanthropic endeavours, Ms Olley passed away in Sydney on July 26 at age 88.

At a special memorial service at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Governor-General Quentin Bryce was among those who paid their respects. Ms Bryce discussed how she had visited the artist at her home just a few days before she died, and how they had discussed a Picasso that was to be gifted to the National Gallery of Australia.

Reflecting Ms Olley’s love of music, the service incorporated performances by didgeridoo player William Barton, pianist Alexey Yemtsov, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. In attendance were many artists and gallery directors including Betty Churcher, Edmund Capon, John Olsen and Ray Crooke. Also present were the two Archibald Prize-winning portraits of Olley – William Dobell’s entry from 1948 and the radically different likeness by Ben Quilty that was named this year’s winner.

Lismore-born and Somerville House educated, Ms Olley was best known for painting still lifes and interiors of her own house and landscapes.

Following some initial controversy, the 1948 Archibald Prize-winning portrait became a sensation and attracted visitors in their thousands. Ms Olley reacted to this early fame by escaping to Europe for four years. While there she worked and studied in London, before moving to Cassis in the South of France. Following studies at La Grande Chaumiere school in Paris she held a critically successful one-woman exhibition, but returned to Australia in 1953 citing homesickness.

In the 1960s, Ms Olley enjoyed a series of artistic successes, winning multiple regional awards in areas as far apart as Redcliffe in Queensland and Bendigo in Victoria.

As prolific as she was popular, Olley’s work can be found in the majority of public galleries in Australia. A 2009 retrospective staged at the UQ Art Museum – Life’s journey – set attendance records for the gallery. Focusing on pen and ink watercolours, it provided visitors a unique insight into the artist’s world from the early 1950s to the 1970s. The works were drawn from national, state and private collections (including the artist’s own), and featured scenes captured in places as diverse as Paris, Papua New Guinea and the old gold mining town of Hill End.

Ms Olley’s work looked to a modernist French tradition that generally pre-dated cubism. She particularly admired artists including Fantin-Latour, Bonnard, Vuillard and Gauguin.

Her many achievements included being awarded Australia’s highest civilian honour in 2006 – the Companion of the Order of Australia – for service as one of Australia’s most distinguished artists, for philanthropy to the arts, and for encouragement of emerging artists.

University of Queensland Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield said there “will never be another Margaret Olley”.

“Although tiny in physical stature, she was a towering figure in Australian art, philanthropy, and cultural and public life,” Professor Greenfield said.

“The UQ Art Museum is one of the many institutions that she enriched with her generosity and her vision. Among other things, Margaret sponsored the inaugural UQ National Artists’ Self-Portrait Prize in 2007, and gifted the winning painting, by Ben Quilty, to the University.”

Ms Olley was an astute businesswoman, and as her wealth grew she became a generous donor to institutions including the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 2009, she gave the gallery $1 million towards the purchase of Cezanne’s famous landscape Bords de la Marne.

“Giving is part of the receiving,” she once said. “It’s a natural turn of the wheel.”

Ms Olley lived permanently in Sydney from about 1980 and her iconic Paddington home was filled with colourful objects, furniture and art collected from her travels around the world. The jury is still out on how to best create a lasting memorial to Olley’s incredible life and work, although a photographic survey of her house was recently completed, with plans for an interactive website.

She may not have been the nation’s most critically acclaimed artist throughout her long career, but she was arguably the most loved.

“Visitors to our art museum adored Margaret and her art,” Professor Greenfield said.

“Generations of artists, arts administrators and art lovers were saddened by her death. However, we will never really lose her, because Margaret Olley lives on in the art, through the younger artists she mentored, and in her extraordinary portfolio of gifts to galleries and museums all over the country.”

By Fiona Kennedy. Additional reporting courtesy The Australian

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