Born South Africa. 1915- 2008

Olga Davenport first exhibited her paintings at the South African Academy at the age of fifteen. A year later she came to England to study painting, acting and ballet. In 1956, following a successful career as an actor with minor roles in films such as The Dominant Sex (1937), Caesar and Cleopatra (1946), A Christmas Carol (1951) and Black Orchid (1953), she returned to painting.

He later work is mainly concerned with the depiction of landscapes and is recognised for the use of gentle, yet dynamic colours which reduce forms to abstracted shapes. She uses broad, fluid brushstrokes of colour to capture the outlines of natural environments. The painted landscapes embody a delicate compromise between the wholly self-involved abstraction of modernist formalism and a fascination with the experience and representation of the natural world.

An article by Martina Margetts in Art Review, 1976 discusses an exhibition of Olga Davenport's work at the Piccadilly Gallery, London.

In The Mountains