Margaret Olley
Australian painter born in Lismore 1923, Margaret Olley is one of Australia's most prized interior and still life painters. She has held over 60 solo exhibitions in Australia and abroad since 1948. Olley studied at East Sydney Technical College (National Art School) under Herbert Badham, Douglas Dundas, Frank Medworth and Jean Bellette. She graduated in 1945 with A-class honours.
After graduating, Olley quickly became involved in the post-war Sydney art scene. In the late 1940s, she and Donald Friend became some of the first artists to spend time painting in the Hill End area of New South Wales.
She first came to public attention as the beguiling subject of Dobell's winning Archibald portrait in 1948. Olley held her first solo exhibition that same year in which her works were purchased by the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Victoria.
Margaret Olley became known within the Australian art scene for her still-life paintings of vases of flowers, bowls of fruit and furniture from around her home. Rejecting the trends of the modern art movement, Olley used her unique sensibility for colour and light and her keen eye for detail and pictorial harmony to transform ordinary objects into those of beauty and elegance.
In 1997 her work was the subject of a major retrospective organised by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Olley set up the Margaret Olley Art Foundation, which has bought art work in the vicinity of $15 million over the past 20 years, which is donated to various institutions and galleries. Much of the work she purchased through the Foundation was by young Australian emerging artists.

Margaret Olley died at her home in Sydney, aged 88, on the 26th July 2011.

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Margaret Olley is listed in the following categories..

Portrait Painters
Artists directory of portrait painters

Still-Life Painters
Artist directory of painters who work with the theme of still-life..

Australian Famous Artists
Listing of Famous Australian painters and artists from the country of Australia.

Australian Art Companies
Browse Australian art resources and artists by region throughout the country of Australia.