Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre

Overview

This gallery started life in 1988 inside a restored Federation-era family home on the bank of the Tweed River, but outgrew the space and relocated to its current rural site in 2004, on land donated by Doug and Margot Anthony. The new building drew crowds from the start, with more than 50,000 visitors in its first year alone. A second stage followed in 2006 and was opened by Margaret Olley herself.

After Olley's death in 2011, the Margaret Olley Art Trust gifted a million dollars toward a purpose-built wing in her name, with further funding from government and community sources rounding it out. The Margaret Olley Art Centre opened in 2014 as the gallery's third and final stage.

Its centrepiece is a full recreation of two rooms from Olley's actual home studio — the Hat Factory and the Yellow Room — built using architectural elements relocated from her real house in Paddington, Sydney, and filled with more than 20,000 objects she spent decades collecting as subject matter for her paintings. That recreation stays on permanent display, while the Centre's exhibition spaces change twice a year, backed by a research library, education workshop and an artist-in-residence studio.

Olley remains Australia's most celebrated painter of still life and interiors, and the connection runs beyond the art centre named for her — a memorial garden on site reflects her lifelong fascination with flowers as painting subjects.

Images: Supplied.

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