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• Auction House:
  Deutscher and Hackett
• Sale Name:
  Important Australian + International Art
• Sale Date:
  27 Nov 2019 ~ 7pm (AEDT)
• Lot #:
  55
• Lot Description:
  Margaret Olley
  (1923 – 2011)
  Red Room And Visitor, 2001
  oil on board
  76.0 x 76.0 cm
  signed lower right: Olley; bears inscription verso: 11.
• Provenance:
  Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane (label attached verso); Private collection, Hobart
• Exhibited:
  "Margaret Olley," Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane, 27 November – 22 December 2001, cat. 11
• References:
  "The Olley Project" [https://ehive.com/collections/5439/objects/466388/red-room-and-visitor-i] (accessed 16/10/2019)
• Notes:
  Unswayed by the tide of late Modernism, Margaret Olley was forever steadfastly devoted to humble still-life and interior scenes. As observed by Olley's dear friend Edmund Capon, ‘Still-lifes and interiors are her "métier", and Margaret Olley is a part of that tradition, from Vermeer in the seventeenth century to Morandi in the twentieth century – two of her most admired artists – which finds inspiration, beauty and a rich spirit of humanity in the most familiar of subject matter’.1 Painted at her famed Paddington home", Red Room and Visitor", 2001 is a wonderful example of Olley’s masterful manipulation of light and space. Olley’s world is replete with time-worn furnishings, seasonal blooms, and a boundless assortment of "objets d’art "collected over many decades of wide travels and abundant friendships. In "Red Room and Visitor", we are invited into the visual feast that is her private domain. The visitor sits quietly amid the jumble of mismatching chairs, perhaps awaiting a cup of tea and a friendly conversation. The light filters through the window, casting shadows across the furniture and contributing to an effortlessly harmonious composition. However, this ambience conceals a carefully considered orchestration of space. Arranged and rearranged like props in a theatre set, the objects in Olley’s paintings are meticulously placed in a delicately constructed "mise en scène". As Olley’s good friend, Barry Humphries, describes, ’the house is her studio, and its contents are her subject. Her method – seemingly vagrant – is in reality a sophisticated artistic assembly line from which emerge her vibrant tableaux of inanimate things’.2 "Red Room and Visitor" has a similar sensibility to the domestic interior paintings by Edouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard. Utilising the "intimiste" style pioneered by these French artists, Olley examines the hidden riches of her private world. ‘An interior will result in a portrait of the person who lives there, but it is also to do with approaching the room as if it was a person whose portrait you’re painting’.3 The viewer is invited to explore the kilim rugs underfoot, chinoiserie chests, Spanish jugs and wooden furniture, imbuing equal significance to everyday treasures as the people that sporadically visited such paintings. The artist endlessly found magic in the unremarkable, revelling in the beauty of her Paddington terrace home. The warmth and congeniality found in "Red Room and Visitor" reflects the very essence of the artist's own domestic existence. 1. Capon, E., quoted in Pearce, B.", Margaret Olley", The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1996, p. 7 2. Humphries, B., 'A Note of Exclamation,' in Pearce, B.", Margaret Olley", Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1996, p. 8 3. Olley, M., quoted in Stewart, M.", Margaret Olley: Far from a Still Life", Random House Australia, Melbourne, 2005, p. 427 MELISSA HELLARD
• Estimate:
  A$45,000 - 65,000
• 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.