I saw the painting in Ben's studio, which was then in Alexandria. Ben would miss out that year, although his portrait of Beryl Whiteley did make it to the finals. But this year he has stormed home with his wonderful evocation of that grande dame of Australian art, Margaret Olley. There was a definite sense of history and the passage of time yesterday when Ben was announced as the winner of the 90th Archibald Prize. Margaret Olley, of course, was the subject of William Dobell's 1948 Archibald Prize winning portrait. At that time, Olley was a young unknown, just about to leave for Europe for the first time and embark on what would become a long, sometimes bumpy and richly creative life. Yesterday, there she was again, this time as a near legend, as well known for her own lifetime's artistic output as she is for her remarkable philanthropy. Edmund Capon, director of the Art Gallery of NSW, told me yesterday that Olley's gifts of local and international artworks to the AGNSW are in the vicinity of $8 million. Some of those gifts to the gallery were paintings by Quilty. You can see what attracted Olley to Quilty's painting in the first place, when she and AGNSW curator Barry Pearce were judging the 2002 travelling scholarship. There's a love of the creaminess and viscosity of paint, a deftness of application, a daring to be different, and a dangerous edge to the subject matter. Sometimes Quilty has gone too far, however.