Margaret Olley OAM - Spare Bedroom

Margaret Olley OAM (1923-2011), Spare Bedroom 1970, oil on composition board, 122 x 91.5 cm, Lismore Regional Gallery Permanent Collection, Donated from the Margaret Hannah Olley Art Trust in memory of her parents, Joseph and Grace Olley, 2006. Photo: Carl Warner .

About the artwork
Spare Bedroom was painted at 'Fardon', the Olley family home in Brisbane. Margaret Olley's mother, Grace Olley, was good friends with artist Margaret Cilento's grandmother, Alice 'Nanny' McGlew. Occasionally Nanny McGlew was a guest at the Olleys' and occupied this narrow little room, more like a passageway than a proper bedroom. 

About the artist
Margaret Olley was born in Lismore on 24 June 1923 and passed away in her sleep at her home in Sydney on 26 July 2011. She is recognised as one of Australia's foremost still-life painters. Many of Olley's paintings depict intimate interiors. Her still-lifes and interiors reflect the objects within her surroundings and the characteristics of her immediate world, and this became more and more true as her momility decreased, later in iife. She held over ninety solo exhibitions during her lifetime.
 
Conserved by ICS / International Conservation Services
Conservation notes: The arwork was dry surface cleaned and aqueous cleaned; unstable media to edges was consolidated; abrasions to media were inpainted; final varnish; reframed into new frame.

ArtVenture is presented by Lismore City Council’s Destination and Economy Team in collaboration with Lismore Regional Gallery.