Artists Biography 1940 - 1981

ROBERT "BOB" OLLEY
BIOGRAPHY
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1940 Born , South Shields into a mining family.
1951 Attended Westoe Secondary Modern.
1955 Left school worked as a Painter and decorator.
1957 Began his mining career at Whitburn Colliery.
1968 Left the mining industry.
1969 Joined Plessey Telecommunications.
1970 Worked in London and showed his work at the weekly Sunday Painters Exhibition on Bayswater Road.

1971 Olley's first gallery showing, two oil paintings, was in the Bede Gallery for the Jarrow Festival.  Later this year he sells his first oil painting "Cumberlands Scrap Yard" from the Novo Gallery, Gosforth.

1972 Joint exhibition in South Shields Library.  Two paintings "Adam and Eve" and "The Westoe Netty" almost result in the exhibition being closed down on the grounds of indecency.

1973 Began to show his work on the Armstrong Bridge Sunday Exhibition, Newcastle upon Tyne.

1974  Left Plessey Telecoms. to become full time artist and sculptor.

Bob, back in 1973

1974 to 1977
Worked on many commissions including graphics for the Tyne Tees regional programme" What Fettle", BBC Television's Silver Jubilee Street Party, the University theatre production, "Geordies Court" and a mural depicting personalities of the pop and film world, political figures and royalty. The theme for the painting was a Roman orgy and was commissioned for the Club Tiberius, Newcastle upon Tyne.

1978
Exhibition. Olley's first one- man exhibition in a major gallery, the Metal Art Precinct was entitled " The Heart and Humour of the North East".
Opened by Sir Robin Chapman, the exhibition contained more than a hundred works consisting of prints, pen and ink drawings, ceramic, cold cast bronze sculptures and twenty- four oil paintings.

The inspiration for this body of work was drawn mainly from his experiences in mining, the industry at the "Heart" of the region's economy.  His flair for observing the every day life and "Humour" that is unique to the people in the North East of England were successfully demonstrated in this exhibition.

Later this year he is commissioned to create a work that will be presented to Lord Louis Mountbatten.

1979
Olley moves the production of his sculpture to Washington New Town and creating his company Robert Olley Sculpture Castings Ltd.

1980
Bowcourt Productions sponsored by Washington Development Corp., South Tyneside Council and the National Union of Mineworkers produce a one hour documentary" Robert Olley 1980" narrated by North East actor James Bolam.

1981

Commissioned by Northumbria Police to produce a sculpture for presentation to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to commemorate the opening of the new police headquarters at Pontiland, Northumberland.

Continued…...

www.robertolley.co.uk