revisiting post: a lifelong appreciation for the everyday.

'Portrait in the mirror', 1948 by Margaret Olley.

the artist aged 83

Margaret Olley

Last September I was at a beautiful old Brisbane building for a function and made a point to post on the work of an artist whose works were on show there... possibly in permanent collection... although I would have to check that fact. Read that post here.


This artist has long been a favourite of mine ... and many for that matter... and on the weekend much discussion was centred on her as she died last week. I read a wonderful article in the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday.

the artist in 2001

Still life with mandarins, 1975

Gina McColl, July 27:

'OUTSPOKEN, bohemian and much-loved artist Margaret Olley has died at her home in Sydney, aged 88.

Olley was painting until the end, said her dealer and friend Philip Bacon, who was with her on Monday as she put the final touches to her forthcoming solo show.'

''She went the way she wanted, with paint still on her fingers, cigarettes stubbed out and off to bed after a full day of painting,'' Mr Bacon said.

Picture postcard view becomes a work of genius

Steve Meacham (click to read article source)

July 30, 2011

Margaret Olley's final work has been revealed - a masterpiece and a sweeping tribute to the city she loved.

It is being called ''Margaret's last masterpiece''. An epically scaled panorama of Sydney Harbour, so wide it fills three panels. A painting Margaret Olley was desperate to finish before she died, peacefully in her sleep. A labour of love that took five years and has not been seen in public before.

''Margaret told me, 'This is going to be my final homage to the city I fell in love with six decades ago,' '' says Barry Pearce, her close friend and biographer, who told the 88-year-old she was being too pessimistic.

But Olley was insistent: ''The emphysema is encroaching fast. The end isn't far away.

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I'm just being realistic.'' Then came the black humour for which Sydney's favourite artist was famed. ''The doctor tells me I have to choose between oxygen and smoke. I chose smoke because I need it to get the job done. And so many people I know who gave up smoking have died long before me.''

The story of Sydney Harbour, late afternoon - the triptych that measures 2.76 metres by 46 centimetres - is almost as beguiling as the indomitable woman who painted it and who was farewelled yesterday in a private funeral.

It began, says Philip Bacon, her gallerist for 35 years and co-executor of her will, when Olley's love of landscape painting was reignited by an invitation to lunch at an apartment in Potts Point. ''That's a nice view. Can I come back and paint it?'' Bacon remembers Olley saying.

''Of course the owners were thrilled. They didn't realise she wasn't talking about coming one afternoon. She came back month after month. She was like a cuckoo. Once in the nest, it was hard to get her out.''

She hadn't painted landscapes for years. As her mobility decreased, she had admitted defeat, concentrating instead on those famous interiors and still life. But now she could see a way forward and it came to a head when she was invited by friends Barry Humphries and his wife, Lizzie Spender, to a New Year's Eve party at their apartment overlooking Circular Quay. Olley manoeuvred on her walking frame on to their  balcony and declared  again that she would love to paint it.

‘‘Of course, Barry and Lizzie are away a lot,’’ Bacon says. ‘‘So she took lots of panels – big ones, small ones – and just kept working. The years came and went. The seasons came and went.

‘‘She painted various versions which she never exhibited.

‘‘The big triptych is the summation of all those years sitting up on Barry’s balcony, in good weather and bad, smoking her cigarettes, watching the harbour and trying to put it all down.’’

Once or twice disaster threatened. ‘‘About two years ago, she locked herself in his apartment and couldn’t get out,’’ Bacon says.  ‘‘The door is self-locking but her eyesight was getting so bad she couldn’t see the numbers to call the concierge.’’  

As a painter himself, Humphries loved being involved in Olley’s creative process. But there were drawbacks. ‘‘Barry rang me once when he got back after being away several months,’’ Bacon says.  ‘‘He said, ‘I’ve just got home and there are all these old boards out on the balcony covered in salt spray ... I think underneath them there might be a Margaret Olley.’’

Another time, some of Olley’s studies went missing from the apartment. ‘‘Barry was very upset,’’ Bacon says. ‘‘Margaret wasn’t upset at all. She said, ‘They’re only paintings.’’’ They were found months later, under a bed where a cleaner had put them.

Pearce, who recently retired as curator of Australian painting at the Art Gallery of NSW, remembers being aghast when Olley took him to the apartment to see her work in progress. ‘‘I must confess, I thought it was a big mistake. I said, ‘Margaret, you’re looking down on these cliched views of the harbour. You’ll be producing postcards.’’’

But when he saw the finished triptych, he apologised. ‘‘She’d pulled it off. Her celebrity status tended to obscure her painting ability. Instinct was always her main driving force but there was great intelligence, too.’’

Humphries arrived at Olley’s house as Pearce was watching her finishing the painting. ‘‘He said, ‘What do you make of it?’ And I replied, ‘It’s an adagio of love. It has a musical feel, painted in her favourite afternoon light.’ Barry and I both got very emotional.’’

Four years ago, Olley had exhibited another large triptych, of  ‘‘the yellow room’’ in her home where much of her  work was done.

‘‘These two masterpieces tell you everything she was capable of and everything she dreamed she was going to be as a painter,’’ Pearce says.

She always felt critics and curators, like the public, had allowed her celebrity as model, muse, philanthropist, arts advocate and party person to overshadow her genius as a painter. She told Pearce: ‘‘I’ve got to do this big painting to match my contemporaries. Otherwise I’ll never hang in a museum.’’

So is  Sydney Harbour, late afternoon  destined for a public gallery? ‘‘That was her dream,’’ Bacon says. ‘‘She asked, ‘What do you think it will sell for? I’m not giving it to any galleries.’

‘‘As generous as she was, she did feel that her painting should have been taken more seriously by institutions over the years.’’

Bacon suggested $200,000.  ‘‘Yes, I suppose that is about right,’’ she said.  ‘‘Where do you think it will go?

Artist Margaret Olley and actor Barry Humphries at the NSW Art Gallery in Sydney for launch of biography 'Margaret Olley:Far From a Still Life' by Meg Stewart.
 William Dobell's 1948 Archibald-winning portrait of Olley is in the background. Picture: Brianne Makin

Artist Ben Quilty with his subject, artist Margaret Olley, in front of Quilty's portrait of her at the Art Gallery of NSW in The Domain, Sydney. Quilty is the winner of the 2011 Archibald Prize. Picture: Alan Pryke

Painting by artist Margaret Olley, displayed at the Art Gallery of NSW. 

Margaret Olley sketching in Newcastle in 1965. 

What a well-lived life... !