Artist: JOHN OLSEN born 1928

Awards:
1960 Rockdale Prize;
1961 H.C. Richards Memorial Prize (Queensland Art Gallery), Perth Prize; 1962 Royal Sydney Show Prize;
1963 Georges Art Prize, Melbourne; 1964 Launceston Prize, Tasmania; 1969 Wynne Prize (Art Gallery of New South Wales);
1977 Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) for services to the Arts
1985 Wynne Prize (Art Gallery of New South Wales);
1993 Australian Creative Fellowship;
2001 Order of Australia (O.A.);
2005 Archibald Portrait Prize.

John Olsen is certainly acknowledged as Australia's greatest living artist and literally a "living legend". Essentially an abstract artist with a figurative element applying to many of his works. His career now spanning well over half a century has been one of success after success. He is represented in virtually every major state institution and in every major collection. He is recognized nationally and internationally as one of Australia's most significant accomplished and innovative artist since the 60's. Born in Newcastle in 1928, Olsen moved to Bondi at the age of seven. He studied at the Julian Ashton School , the Orban School, in Paris and in Spain. In 1955 his first major success occurred when the National Gallery of Victoria purchased a work. In 1957 he went overseas and during this time he sent exhibitions back to Sydney and Melbourne. Since his return to Sydney in 1960 he has held numerous solo exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne. From 1969 to 1971 Olsen lived at the Dunmoochin artists colony, outside Melbourne, working with Clifton Pugh, Fred Williams, Albert Tucker and others and in 1970 he was commissioned by the Dobell Foundation to paint the Sydney Opera House mural Salute to Five Bells. In 1974 he began a series of tours through Central Australia, and later Egypt, Kenya and South Africa which has fuelled his love of the landscape and its inhabitants. He has been awarded many prizes and awards including an OBE in 1977. Olsen major retrospective travelled Australia 1991-92. He is represented by the Australian National Gallery and most Australian state and regional galleries as well as private and corporate collections. Art Encyclopedia www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/olsen_john.html Veteran Australian painter John Olsen has won the 2005 Archibald Prize for his painting Self Portrait Janus.

John Olsen is a master water colorist witness a series of large works (often around 8 feet high) on Japanese torinoko paper with titles such as The Rookery, Dying Creek Bed and Owls at Cooper's Creek. These exquisite and humorous paintings bear comparison with the best of Zen sumi tradition without ever striking a false note. Another group of paintings, begun in 1987 and dominated by tar blacks and heavy umbers, adumbrates themes of Spanish village life, literary references and autobiographical probing, all in a tragicomic mode. A purely Olsen touch appears in the darkness that is animated by scrawly images in Donde Voy? Self-Portraits in Moments of Doubt: a squiggly little fried egg, hovering in space where one of the figure's genitals would be in a fuller rendering, refers playfully to Velazquez, a symbol of redemption and a particular not- quite- cooked bit of breakfast. Olsen's work has not yet been seen in the U.S., yet this retrospective would more than hold its own at any of our major venues". A typical Olsen painting combines an implied aerial view with an ambiguous and seemingly unpremeditated figuration. His characteristically quizzical line and irregular squiggles and dots deftly render countless organisms, large and minute. Their environment is conjured through loosely brushed and stained expanses of colour (on canvas or hardboard) that are keyed to natural light. Even when he is referring to the outback landscape, usually noted for its austerity and inhospitality, Olsen's imagery teems with life. Yet the same lines sometimes read as geological mappings. In Olsen's work there is no foreground/ middle ground/ background schema, nor any sign of European landscape's concern with "human scale." Intend he employs simultaneously the contrary vantages of naturalist and geographer or, to put it another way, the viewpoints of frog and eagle.

Collections:
John Olsen's work is represented in all Australian state gallery collections, the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and regional galleries Australia wide. He is also represented in institutional, corporate and private collections in Australasia, United Kingdom, Europe and the United States of America Australian Queensland Art Gallery  www.qag.qld.gov.au/collection/australian_art_to_1970/john_olsen  John Olsen is also represented in institutional, corporate and private collections in Australia, Asia, the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States of America.

Selected Bibliography: Virginia Spate, John Olsen, Georgian House, Melbourne, 1973; John Olsen, Salute to Five Bells: John Olsen's Opera House Journal, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1973; John Olsen, My Complete Graphics, 1957-79, Gryphon Books, Melbourne, 1980; Sandra McGrath and John Olsen, The Artist and the Desert, Bay Books, Sydney and London, 1981; John Olsen: Gold, exhibition catalogue, introduction by Edmund Capon, essay by John Olsen, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, 1986; Deborah Hart, John Olsen, Craftsman House, 1991; John Olsen, Drawn from Life, D&S, Sydney, 1997

Selected Group Exhibitions
1956 Direction 1, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney; Pacific Loans Exhibition, Auckland and San Francisco.
1961 Sydney 9, Gallery A, Melbourne; Recent Australian Art, Whitechapel Gallery, London; H.C. Richards Memorial prize, Queensland Art Gallery
1963 Georges Invitation Prize, Melbourne.
1967 Australian Painters 1964-66, Corcoran Gallery, Washington U.SA
1969 Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales
1976 The Child in Us All, John Olsen: Tapestries and oils on hardboard, Queensland Festival of Art, St. Johns Anglican Cathedral, Brisbane
1977 Australian Contemporary Printmakers, Stadia Graphics Gallery, Sydney
1978 Australian Etching, National Gallery of Victoria
1979 Focus '79 R.M.I.T., Melbourne
1982 John Olsen 1981-82 & Noela Hjorth; Paintings, lithographs & drawings, Festival of Perth Exhibition, Bortignon's Gallery of Man, Perth; Aspects of the Landscape, Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne.
1986 Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales
1987 Jack Manton Art Prize, Queensland
1998-1999 Southern Reflections: Ten Contemporary Artists, toured Northern Europe
1998 Private Collections, Orange Regional Gallery
1998-1999 Escape Artists: Modernists in the Tropics, touring regional galleries in Queensland and New South Wales

Awards
1960 Rockdale Prize
1961 H.C. Richards Memorial Prize (Queensland Art Gallery), Perth Prize
1962 Royal Sydney Show Prize
1963 Georges Art Prize, Melbourne
1964 Launceston Prize, Tasmania
1969 Wynne Prize (Art Gallery of New South Wales)
1977 Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) for services to the Arts
1985 Wynne Prize (Art Gallery of New South Wales)
1993 Australian Creative Fellowship
2001 Order of Australia (O.A.)
2005 Archibald Portrait Prize

Collections
John Olsen's work is represented in all Australian state gallery collections, the National Gallery of Australia and regional galleries Australia-wide. He is also represented in institutional, corporate and private collections in Australia, Asia, the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States of America.

Selected Bibliography
Virginia Spate, John Olsen, Georgian House, Melbourne, 1973
John Olsen, Salute to Five Bells: John Olsen's Opera House Journal, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1973
John Olsen, My Complete Graphics, 1957-79, Gryphon Books, Melbourne, 1980
Sandra McGrath and John Olsen, The Artist and the Desert, Bay Books, Sydney and London, 1981
John Olsen: Gold, exhibition catalogue, introduction by Edmund Capon, essay by John Olsen, AGNSW, Sydney, 1986
Deborah Hart, John Olsen, Craftsman House, 1991
John Olsen, Drawn from Life, D&S, Sydney, 1997
Sandra McGrath, Lake Eyre - the Desert Sea, Lansdowne, Melbourne, 1979.
John Olsen: My Complete Graphics 57-79, Gryphon Books and Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 1980.
Deborah Hart, John Olsen, Craftsman House, 1992.

 Artist: JOHN Henry OLSEN (1928-)
Title: Fruitta Misto del Mare 1991
Medium: Gouache & mix media on paper
Image size: 99.5 x 95.5cm
 BUY

REF: "Art from the Kerry Stokes Collection" Sotheby's August 2002 lot 501

Artist: JOHN OLSEN born 1928
Title: Two Men in Landscape
Medium: gouache, pastel, water-colour
Image size:51.5 x 54.5 cm
Price: $29,500  BUY