John Olsen AO OBE

John Olsen died at the age of 95, with his family by his side. John made an outstanding contribution to Australian art–his greatest achievement has been the way in which he transformed our conception of the environment with great vitality and insight. In the 1960s he brought a revolutionary approach to painting shaped by the dynamism of his line, the vibrancy of his colour, and the multiplicity of his mark-making in works including his You Beaut Country series which he conceived as ‘an all at once world’.

In impressive large-scale paintings like Sydney Sun 1965 and Five Bells 1963 (now in the National Gallery of Australia and Art Gallery of New South Wales collections, respectively), he conveyed the interconnectedness between natural phenomena such as light and water and all living beings. Olsen was also adept at expressing the propulsive, emotive energy of place in works such as Spanish Encounter 1960. Tony Tuckson, Assistant to the Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales at the time, and an artist himself, commented on the ground-breaking nature of the work, the likes of which hadn’t before been seen in Australia.

In 1972 James Gleeson, artist and chairman of the Dobell Foundation, invited Olsen to undertake one of his most important commissions for the Sydney Opera House, Salute to Five Bells. After the ebullient works of the 1960s this enormous mural, informed by Kenneth Slessor’s poem, Five Bells 1939, conveyed a more elegiac mood and was an extraordinary achievement. Another significant commission came from John Truscott for the State Theatre of the Arts Centre in Melbourne in 1983–85, resulting in eight major paintings celebrating great operas. Together these commissions are a tour de force, encompassing Olsen’s engagement with poetry and music.

Another highly significant aspect of Olsen’s artistic career from the 1970s and 1980s through to the twenty-first century has been the cultivation of his understanding of diverse aspects of remote regional Australia: from North Queensland to the north of Western Australia, to Kati Thanda (Lake Eyre) which has been an abiding source of inspiration to him. In his many works relating to Kati Thanda (Lake Eyre), Olsen brought first-hand experience together with poetic and philosophical understandings of ‘the edge’ and ‘the void’, fullness and emptiness. Simultaneously, his intimate drawings of frogs and birds convey a sense of the wonder that natural life has to offer.

In paintings, drawings, watercolours, prints, tapestries, murals and ceramics Olsen has demonstrated the inventiveness of his creative imagination. He has done this in ways that convey deep understandings of a wide range of media and ways of working, including in collaboration with weavers at the Victorian Tapestry Workshop who found considerable inspiration working with him in realising his distinctive creative vision.

Over more than half a century, Olsen expressed his passionate engagement with the natural world, bringing inspiration to thousands of people. In recent times, his art has been selected to illuminate the Sydney Opera House for Vivid Sydney 2023. Entitled Life Enlivened the selection of images conveys that Olsen’s work is never static but always full of life.

John was a council member of the National Gallery of Australia and a trustee on the Board of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He was given the honour of two retrospective exhibitions in his lifetime, and was appointed to the Order of Australia in 2001.

The National Gallery of Australia holds 15 major paintings in the collection, made between 1955 and 2018, as well as 25 drawings, 42 prints, 4 textiles and 6 ceramics.

We will remember John’s great contribution to Australian art with deep admiration. Our memories of his vibrant public persona and his great knowledge of all kinds of literature, especially poetry, which informed his art, remain.

Dr Deborah Hart, Henry Dalrymple Head Curator, Australian Art, National Gallery of Australia