OLIVIA MUSGRAVE

"[Musgrave´s] wonderfully sensual Amazons, often sitting astride lithe, vibrant horses are profoundly mysterious. They capture the wistful religion of the Greeks, gazing sorrowfully at the moon. But these are also the work of an Irishwoman who knows horses, and has in every sense a feel for them."

Olivia Musgrave was born in Dublin in 1958. Her father is Anglo-Irish and her mother Greek. After finishing school, she travelled to Europe to study political science in Paris, work with an Irish tour company in Italy & explore her origins in Greece. This provided the opportunity to immerse herself in the major European museums and art collections, where she discovered a love for twentieth-century Italian figurative sculptors.

Inspired by these artists, and by her travels, Musgrave enrolled at the City and Guilds of London Art School in Kensington to study sculpture. There was at that time a largely figurative tradition in the sculpture department, under Alan Sly, and a vibrant environment with the President of the Royal Academy, the late Sir Roger de Grey, at the helm. Musgrave spent three years there, learning all the basic skills required for a life making figurative sculpture.

After college, Musgrave was offered several commissions and was fortunate enough to have a studio large enough to stage small solo exhibitions. This enabled her to gradually build up a body of work, as well as contacts in Dublin and London. She is now a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors and the Society of Portrait Sculptors. She exhibits at the Royal Hibernian Academy and Jorgensen Fine Art in Dublin, at the John Martin Gallery in London and now the Somerville Manning Gallery in the USA. Olivia Musgrave currently lives and works in London with her husband, John Gardiner.

This is Musgrave´s second exhibition at Everard Read.