15 Facts About Olga Edwardes

Olga Edwardes's mother was Jean Cox, a South African actress who was a divorcee when she married Solomon in 1914 in Cape Town.

Olga Edwardes's mother married again in Cape Town in 1922 to Hugh Edwards, a company secretary, who became Olga and Paul's stepfather.

Olga Edwardes died in 1979; she died in Elstree, England, in 2008.

Olga Edwardes was an early player in the fledgling BBC television service, which started in November 1936 until it closed at the beginning of the War, and didn't restart until 1946.

Olga Edwardes deputised as a television announcer when Elizabeth Cowell was on leave in 1939.

Olga Edwardes's husband had bought it in 1922, and together they entertained and held court to influential and radical artists, economists, philosophers, and politicians of the day at grand gatherings.

Olga Edwardes Davenport continued the social activity of salon gathering which had been part of history for more than 350 years.

Olga Edwardes had been trained in painting, and returned to that art form following her acting career.

Olga Edwardes spent hours at Eagle's Nest, and Elm Tree Cottage.

Olga Edwardes sat on the board of the Bear Lane Gallery and formed relationships with influential people such as Clement Greenberg and Pauline Vogelpoel.

Olga Edwardes exhibited with the London Group and with the Women's International Art Club.

Olga Edwardes had shown in a number of group exhibitions including an Arts Council tour, at the Leicester Galleries, at the Whitechapel, the, the Drian Gallery, Galerie Creuse, Paris, Athens School of Fine Arts, Women in the Arts Today at the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, the Bear Lane Gallery in Oxford, Grabowski Gallery, and at the Demarco Gallery.

Olga Edwardes had two one-person shows at the Piccadilly Gallery in London's Cork Street in 1969, and in 1976; and in 1978 she had a solo show of oils at the Oxford Gallery.

Olga Edwardes used broad, fluid brushstrokes of colour to capture the outlines of natural environments.

Olga Edwardes's works are in the permanent collections of the Nuffield Foundation, St Anne's College, Oxford, University of Warwick, Department of the Environment, and in private collections in England, Switzerland, South Africa, Belgium and the United States of America.