Margaret Olley yearned for a dog — in the early 1960s Olley’s beloved pug becomes part of her life, Olley reminisces that: ‘One day somebody arrived with a whole carload of pug dogs. They had little faces like pansies and I thought, that’s the dog for me. I arranged to get a pup from the next litter and so Bonnie Sue, as the breeder had named her, entered my life’.1
Bonnie Sue enters Margaret Olley’s life
RELATED: Margaret Olley
Framed in both warm and cool colours, this portrait of Bonnie Sue was hung at Olley’s exhibition at Macquarie Gallery, Sydney. Bonnie Sue was also included in a number of human portrait compositions apart from her own numerous portraits being displayed at Olley’s exhibitions.
To Olley’s distress, her most accomplished works of Bonnie Sue were lost in the fire at the family home, ‘Farndon’ in 1980, situated at 15 Morry Street, Hill End (now West End).
‘Farndon’ was just a street back from the river. From my bedroom I could see little bits of its greeny-coloured water. At night the river cruise would come past. It used to go about as far as Lone Pine and there was dancing on board. You’d hear faint chugging; the music would be slowly swelling as the boat came closer then fade away. Then just as we were about to fall asleep, the faint sound of music would drift off the water again as it came back down.2
Endnotes
1 Meg Stewart, Margaret Olley: Far from a Still Life, rev. and updated edn, Vintage, Sydney, 2012, pp. 350
2 Margaret Olley: Far from a Still Life, pp. 273-4.
Farndon
Featured image detail: Margaret Olley Bonnie Sue 1964
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