Margaret Olley: Far From a Still Life by Meg Stewart

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Foxing marks on top foredge. Dust jacket is in good condition with creasing to edges. Pages have started to sun. Interior and binding are still very good.

Margaret Olley (1923-2011) was arguably one of Australia's most loved artists. She was also one of the country's most generous benefactors to public art galleries.

This intimate biography begins in the 1920s in the green, tropical wet of Tully, North Queensland, where Margaret's early childhood was spent on a cane farm and dairy. The story unfolds to tell of her lifelong love affair with painting. At boarding school at Somerville House, Brisbane, Margaret found a mentor in art teacher Caroline Barker, and she went on to blossom as an art student at East Sydney Technical College.

The book includes intriguing revelations about her friendships with well-known figures such as Donald Friend, William Dobel and Russell Drysdale and the success of her first one-person show in Sydney at the age of twenty-five.

Bohemian adventures in Europe with fellow Australian artists, including David Strachan, were to follow. She travelled, sketchbook in hand, around England, France, Italy and Spain; met Alice B. Toklas in Paris; and lived on a vineyard at Cassis in the South of France.

Her story continued back in Australia, where in the late 1950s, she struggled with her drinking, having to dry out or dry up creatively. Her return to life and painting was a joyous occasion. (publisher blurb)