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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Fine Australian & International Art
• Sale Date:
  23 Nov 2015 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  7
• Lot Description:
  Margaret Hannah Olley
  (1923-2011)
  Evening Still Life with Turkish Pot c.1982
  oil on board
  75 x 120 cm
  signed lower right: Olley
• Provenance:
  Solander Gallery, Canberra; Private Collection, Melbourne (acquired from the above 1982)
• Exhibited:
  Margaret Olley, Solander Gallery, Canberra, 27 March-18 April 1982, cat. no. 6
• References:
  Related Works:Turkish Pots and Lemons 1982, Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection, Gift of the Artist 2001; Cornflowers (c.1978-c.1982), Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection, Gift of Van Hodgkinson 1988; Still Life with Apples, Mossgreen Auctions, Fine Australian & International Art, 31/05/2010, Lot No. 32
• Notes:
  Margaret Olley pursued her painting career with the same enthusiasm and determination which she exerted in her role as a tireless supporter and patron of the arts, to the extent that her good friend Justin O'Brien said that 'God gave Olley an extra battery.'1 However, the artist was able to temper her self-confessed craving for movement and momentum, with a capacity for steely-eyed concentration. Of forging a career as an artist, Olley said 'You become focused and brutal with yourself. I worked that out years ago.'2 It is the artist's capacity for encompassing these two extremes which imbues works such as Evening Still Life with Turkish Pot circa 1982 with a quality of settled attention as well as a heightened sense of drama. As with Turkish Pots and Lemons 1982, which is housed in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the highly textured background wall in this painting serves as a backdrop for the eclectic array of objects poised upon the table. Olley said of her still life works that she moved the objects 'around like characters on a stage',3 an interesting observation for someone who early in her career supplemented her income by painting sets for theatrical productions. In the current work, the inky sheen of the Turkish pots is contrasted to the finely decorated and highly glazed surfaces of the ceramics to the right and the folds of the chintz-like fabric in the foreground, the colours of which echo the muted blues and rich creams of the wall behind. The lighting, which depicts some objects as if they are emerging from the dark while others throw shadows on the wall behind them, further imbues the scene with a sense of theatricality. Although 1982 saw the death of her mother and her close friend, Sam Hughes, Olley was a great believer in the healing power of painting. As she once counselled a grief-stricken Russell Drysdale, 'Tragedy is great sorrow indeed which must be overcome and not given into - and time is a great healer, but I do think that putting everything you have into the work you like doing, which is painting, is the best of all.'4 Given this context, it is perhaps unsurprising that Evening Still Life with Turkish Pot circa 1982 shies away from more intense colours in favour of richer and more subtle hues, with the artist's rendering of light and shadow forging the disparate elements of this composition into a cohesive and compelling whole. 1 Meg Stewart, Margaret Olley: Far From Still Life, Milsons Point, Random House, 2005, p. xvii. 2 Barry Pearce, Margaret Olley, Roseville, The Beagle Press, 2012, p. 161. 3 Ibid, p. 21. 4 Meg Stewart, p. 371.
• Estimate:
  A$60,000 - 80,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.