Olley’s homecoming: Portrait of the century’s final resting place revealed
Ben Quilty’s portrait of friend and mentor Margaret Olley has set a record for his work, selling for $600,000 to the Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre.
It was an evening to salute superstar Australian artist Ben Quilty’s 2o years of exhibiting at Jan Murphy Gallery in Brisbane, but he was upstaged by another artist. Not that Quilty minded, because the person doing the upstaging was his friend and mentor, the late great Margaret Olley.
Olley died in 2011, not long after Quilty won the Archibald Prize with a portrait of Olley. It’s one of the best portraits to ever win the prize.
On the evening in question, the painting was on stage with Quilty and National Gallery of Australia director Nick Mitzevich for an entertaining in-conversation session at The Calile Hotel in Fortitude Valley to celebrate Quilty’s two decades with Jan Murphy Gallery. (Coincidentally, Margaret Olley exhibited at Philip Bacon Galleries, just next door to Murphy’s.)
It was pretty well the Brisbane art event of the year, so far. (I say so far, mindful that the APT opens at QAGOMA later in the week.) There was a lot of love in the room for Quilty, Mitzevich and Olley, who upstaged both of them with the portrait right beside them.
The portrait, which Quilty revealed was painted in 45 minutes, is now on display at Jan Murphy Gallery and has been purchased by the Tweed Regional Gallery for $600,000 – a record for a Quilty.
That gallery is home to the Margaret Olley Art Centre, which has become an art pilgrimage site. It’s appropriate that the portrait will be in the public domain and the northern NSW location is perfect, particularly since Olley was born in Lismore, not that far away.
Olley is claimed by that region as well as by Brisbane where she was schooled and studied art, and by Sydney where she spent much of her life. So, in a sense, Quilty’s Margaret Olley 2011 is going home, but you can still view it in Brisbane until next month.
Meanwhile, the Tweed Regional Gallery Foundation Ltd and Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre have launched a public campaign to raise funds to support the acquisition. Tweed Regional Gallery director Ingrid Hedgcock says it was an opportunity not to be missed.
“This is the first time this exquisite artwork by Ben Quilty has become available and as the home of the Margaret Olley Art Centre we couldn’t let this opportunity pass,” Hedgcock says.
“The artwork has all the ingredients of an extraordinary acquisition – artistic merit, rarity, beloved subject and artist. We are so grateful for the incredible support we have already received from principal donors Tim Fairfax and Gina Fairfax as well as from the Margaret Olley Art Trust, Philip Bacon and Friends of the Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre Inc.
“With their very generous support we have almost achieved our goal and are launching this appeal to raise the remaining funds needed to acquire this portrait.”
That’s not going to be too much of a problem, considering how loved Olley is. Celebrated as Australia’s most distinguished painter of still life, Margaret Olley was a generous philanthropist herself, with an enormous capacity for friendship. She first met Quilty in 2002 when she was the guest judge for the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship. Quilty’s entry, Elwood Park, was a modestly sized landscape and attracted Olley’s attention for the quality of the paint and composition.
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Quilty was awarded the prestigious scholarship and over time the pair developed a bond formed through their mutual respect for each other’s work and capabilities. Olley’s support for the fledgling artist played a significant role in the development of his artistic career. He paid tribute to her at the dinner at The Calile Hotel. Olley might not have been physically present but her spirit was in the room and her portrait dominated the evening.
In 1948, Margaret Olley was the subject of another Archibald Prize-winning portrait by artist William Dobell. When Quilty asked Olley to sit for a portrait 63 years later, the senior artist at first declined. “She dismissed me in her typical, resilient, forceful way,” Quilty says. “But I didn’t give in easily.”
The portrait went on to win the 2011 Archibald Prize just months before Olley’s death on July 26, 2011. Quilty had captured his friend, mentor and fellow artist at the close of her extraordinary life and her enduring career that was bookended by these two Archibald Prize-winning portraits.
Hedgcock says the Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre attracts thousands of visitors each year and this painting will add to its appeal.
“Although it has been displayed in various public galleries since it won the Archibald, it has remained in the artist’s personal collection ever since,” says Hedgcock. “This is the first opportunity for this iconic portrait to be acquired and we are committed to bringing this painting to the Margaret Olley Art Centre, where it belongs, alongside the re-creation of her famous Duxford Street home studio.”
Quilty says it’s a perfect fit.
“The Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre is now home for Margaret’s legacy,” he says. “Her work lives on through that masterful re-creation and the thriving program around it. My portrait of Olley fits neatly in.”
The Tweed Regional Gallery Foundation is now running a national campaign to raise funds to secure the work and gift it to the Tweed Regional Gallery collection. This will happen.
Meanwhile, the painting can still be viewed as part of Quilty’s 20 Years exhibition, which continues at Jan Murphy Gallery in Brisbane until December 7.
Visit gallery.tweed.nsw.gov.au/acquisition-appeal or call 02 6670 2790 to donate to this campaign or find out more.