The Margaret Olley Interiors and Still Lifes Foreword

The Margaret Olley Interiors and Still Lifes exhibition opened at Lismore Regional Gallery on Friday 30 June 2006 at 5.30pm. Margaret was in attendance and also present for the Annual Lismore Regional Gallery Fundraiser Lunch on Saturday 1 July.

Margaret was born in Lismore, is a Patron of Lismore Regional Gallery and is committed to building a new Gallery for Lismore.

It is with great pleasure that Lismore Regional Gallery presents an exhibition by Margaret Olley. Working with Christine France, Philip Bacon and Meg Stewart, we have curated an exhibition that spans significant periods of Margaret’s work. From Farndon, Duxford Street, David Strachan’s house, Brian Moore’s house and featuring the painting Lilies and Grapes; which Lismore Regional Gallery acquired as part of the Lismore City Art Prize in 1958.

Margaret Olley’s paintings are rich with an inherent quality of sentiment and beauty. Her paintings are alive with colour, motion and a sense of the artist. Alluring and magnetic they captivate the viewer, from her house at Farndon to the Yellow Room at Duxford Street, Margaret draws on her immediate inspiration, her home.

I have visited Margaret’s house at Duxford Street on several occasions. Walking into Margaret’s home is like walking into a painting. It is brimming with art, flowers, furniture, books, objects, colour, animation and smells of flowers and fresh oil paint. The track to the kitchen passes by a familiar painting spot – there is a seat, a great lump of paint on a palette, brushes, mail, an ashtray and a warm light streaming in from the skylight and French doors. Fresh pomegranates from the yard are dangling in a vase on a table opposite. A half finished painting is propped up against the table, ready for the next installment, no doubt in the afternoon. To be around Margaret is to have a sense of Australian art history unfolding.

Margaret’s life is remarkable and from a northern New South Wales perspective, it is interesting to consider her early days in our region. Last in Lismore in 1990, Margaret says she is very much looking forward to seeing Lismore, her birthplace, again. Margaret was born at Alkoomie, Nurse Elliott’s Hospital in Conway Street Lismore, 24 June 1923. The family lived at Horseshoe Creek near Green Pigeon and then moved to Tully, the Tweed River, Brisbane, Tully and back to Brisbane.

Margaret’s grandfather on her mother’s side, Thomas Temperley, owned The Richmond River Times in the 1880’s. It was produced from an office in River Street Ballina. In 1917 Margaret’s mother, Grace Temperley, was working in Nimbin at a small hospital to care for returning soldiers. She met Joe Olley and they were married in 1921. Their first child, Margaret Hannah Olley, was born two years later. "I was born at Lismore but my father had a property outside of Lismore where the Olley’s all had places, they were pioneers."

“We moved about so much because of Grandpa Temperley. When Grandpa Temperley was living in Ballina he picked up a parcel of land in North Queensland, near Tully, and then we moved up there. I know we were always wanderers. That’s why I never like to throw anything out for my whole life.”

I asked Margaret about the Olley’s and the Temperley’s around the region. “Well there are a lot of Olley’s around Lismore. Sometimes when we were living on the Tweed we would go down and stay with Uncle Alf and Aunt Rose who lived out of Lismore up on the hill. Their house had big verandahs all the way around – you could almost see the lights of Lismore in the distance.  Those were idyllic days, all those rolling hills.

“I had an idyllic childhood even though the depression was on. It didn’t cost you very much because you had your chooks, ducks, cows, made your own butter amongst other things, and we had a wonderful vegetable garden and fruit trees.” On school mornings Margaret’s mother would row across the Tweed River to take her and the other Olley children to catch the school bus.

This exhibition represents a significant moment for the Gallery, as Margaret Olley, Patron of Lismore Regional Gallery, returns to her birthplace with an outstanding exhibition charting almost 50 years of painting.