'Margaret Olley is a relentless individual. As a painter (which she would much prefer to be called rather than an artist) she is tenacious and passionate, and certainly not one to be diverted by the fleeting chances of fashion and fragile taste. Her work is a continuing celebration of the great tradition of painting; of the delight in colour, in form and the textures of feeling and emotion that can be expressed in the manipulation of paint. As a painter she finds now, as indeed she has always, extraordinary riches of human sensitivity and aspiration in the most familiar, even prosaic of things, from vases of flowers to bowls of fruit.

Eucharist Lillies 1963

These humble images of the everyday become in her paintings immortal and yet intimate echoes of real substance. Still-lifes and interiors are her particular metier and Margaret Olley is an indelible part of that great tradition, from Vermeer in the Seventeenth century to Morandi in the twentieth (two of her favourite artists) which finds constant inspiration, beauty and a rich spirit of humanity in the most familiar and unassuming subject matter'.

- (extracts from a review by Edmund Capon AM, Director of The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia)

This work, ‘Eucharist Lilies’ is from Margaret’s own private collection.

Margaret Olley is currently painting for a major exhibition to be held in London in 2005. She is represented in countless private collections and in the collections of:

Air Force Association, Williamtown
Allied Queensland Coalfield Ltd, Brisbane
Artbank
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
Australian National Gallery, Canberra
Australian National University, Canberra
Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria
Brisbane City Hall Art Gallery and Museum
Brisbane Club
Brisbane College of Advanced Education
Brisbane Grammar School
Broken Hill Proprietary Ltd, Newcastle, New South Wales
Canberra College of Advanced Education
Canberra School of Art Gallery
The Centre Gallery, Gold Coast, Queensland
Lismore Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales
Maitland City Art Gallery, New South Wales
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Newcastle Region Art Gallery, New South Wales
Newcastle University, New South Wales
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
Queensland Teachers' Union, G.A. Daughtrey Collection, Brisbane
Redcliffe Arts Centre, Queensland
Rockhampton Art Gallery, Queensland
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart
Toowoomba Art Gallery, Queensland