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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Important Art
• Sale Date:
  20 Nov 2017 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  31
• Lot Description:
  Margaret Olley
  (1923-2011)
  Pink Daturas, 1964
  oil on board
  61 x 76 cm
  signed and dated lower left: Olley ‘64
  RELATED WORK: Pink Datura, 1966, 70 x 60 cm, Important Australian Art, Sydney, Sotheby's, 28 August 2006, lot 8, sold for $55,200 (incl. Buyer’s Premium)
• Provenance:
  Australian Galleries, Melbourne; Private collection, Melbourne
• Exhibited:
  Margaret Olley, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 10 – 20 March 1964, cat. no. 2
• Notes:
  This tender and introspective painting by Margaret Olley titled Pink Daturas was created in 1964 following a pivotal chapter in her personal life and career. Unfolding In 1959, Olley decides to quit drinking, mediated by the gentle insistence of her friend and fellow artist Fred Jessup and bolstered by the support of Alcoholics Anonymous ‘for which she fells a great sense of gratitude, liberation and strong desire to get on with painting.’1 This new beginning propels Olley’s career into full realisation. ‘I regard stopping drinking as very much starting another life; in other words, coming back from the grave and celebrating life. Everything was fresh again. People used to say I’d become a workaholic, but I felt I had to work to make up for the time I’d lost.’ 2 The hard work paid off in subsequent years as Olley won a string of consecutive painting prizes from 1962-1965 including the prestigious Helena Rubinstein Portrait Prize in 1962, shortly followed by the Redcliff Art Prize in 1962 and ‘63, the Johnsonian Club Art Prize in 1964 and the Bendigo Art Prize in 1965. The success of these years strengthened Olley’s reputation and ultimately established her as one of Australia’s most beloved and important still life artists. ‘Olley's work is represented in virtually every public gallery in Australia. People who never knew her felt respect and affection, and they loved her paintings. Olley gave far more to the world than she took from it. She was replete with kindness, compassion and generosity.’ 3 There are only a few early examples of Olley painting Datura’s, favouring these flowers in the 60s predominantly during the twilight of her sobriety. Perhaps the hex breaking quality or spiritual enlightenment mythologized in various Native American and Mexican philosophies lent some sustenance to her newly empowered self. Olley remarked to a reporter during her 1964 exhibition earlier that year at Johnstone Galleries ‘I can fell for flowers as I can feel for people. Painting flowers is almost like painting a portrait. I couldn’t care less about them as botanical specimens – in fact, I don’t know the name of many of the flowers I paint.’4 She quipped, this roguish comment is typical of Olley’s mischievous nature, playing down her sharp intellect and knowledge of the household names of flowers she painted. Rather, Olley is reiterating the fundamental nature of her painting is not anatomical. Olley painted flowers with feeling. ‘Her ability to convey the essence of different flower types in unrelated to botanical description nor does it demonstrate the exactness of 17th century Dutch flower painting,’ she conveys the texture and strength of the flower, the real subject is the light which ricochets off the glass vase mingling with the colourful flowers and fruit and reverberating through the atmosphere. 5 ‘The 1960s were a time of great energy and achievement for Margaret Olley. Her works from the period show a breadth of execution and a dynamism which established her reputation as a painter and provided a firm base for her continuing development.’ 6 Olley’s success in Pink Daturas,1964 is tangible, she distinguishes the exact difference between surfaces which gives her painting their overall sensuous feeling of texture and enticing freshness.7 Sarah Garrecht 1 Barry Pearce, Margaret Olley: Paintings 1947-2011, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2012, p. 238; 2 Meg Stewart, Margaret Olley: far from a still life, Random House Australia, 2005, p. 333; 3 Obituary, Margaret Olley: An artist of the people, The Australian, 27 July 2011, p. 15; 4 Meg Stewart, Ibid., p. 377; 5 Barry Pearce, Margaret Olley, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 1997, p. 34; 6 Christine France, Margaret Olley, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1990, p. 43; 7 Meg Stewart, Ibid., p. 370
• Estimate:
  A$40,000 - 60,000
• 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.