Margaret Olley: Far from a Still Life

Margaret Olley is arguably Australia’s most loved living artist. Her rich and textured life has been filled with both great happiness and pain, as Meg Stewart relates in this celebratory intimate biography.

Margaret’s artistic talent became apparent from an early age. She studied at art school in Sydney in the early 1940s, where she met artists such as Russell Drysdale, Donald Friend and William Dobell, with whom she would form enduring friendships. In 1948 she sat for Dobell and the resulting portrait won the Archibald Prize. Margaret then travelled to Europe, where she painted in England, France, Italy and Portugal, and lived on a vineyard in the south of France. But in 1953 she returned to Australia struggling with her drinking and was forced to choose to dry out, or dry up creatively. Her return to life and painting was joyous and nowadays, despite a recent bout of profound depression, she still produces magnificent art, donates generously to our galleries and entertains incessantly.

This is a rich and comprehensive look at eighty-odd years of Margaret Olley – at her lovers and friends, and, of course, her painting. It is glorious proof that indeed her life has been far from still.