John Olsen and Tim Olsen
The Sydney Morning Herald, Page 8 Good Weekend 8 January 2000
Interviewed by Janet Hawley
John Olsen, 71, is a major Australian artist. His son Tim, 37, runs Tim Olsen Gallery in Paddington, Sydney. John Olsen has been married four times and has three children. Tim is the son of his second wife, artist Valerie Olsen.
Tim: I was a love child, conceived at Sydney's National Art School on John's return from Spain. My fabulous,elegant mother, Valerie, couldn't resist him. John told me the story when I was 20 and depressed - trying to cheer me up, saying I was special!
My earliest memories of home at Watsons Bay were raucous times when Dad caroused with his mates -
Drysdale, Dobell, Donald Friend, Robert Hughes, Barry Humphries - then extreme quiet when Dad was
painting. Every morning we swam at Camp Cove. Dad put me on his shoulders and we both sang, 'I'm the king of the castle and you're the dirty rascal.'
For two years, when I was seven and eight, we lived at 'Dunmoochin', Cliff Pugh's mud-brick artists' colony outside Melbourne. I remember Patrick Macnee and Gough Whitlam having their portraits painted; Cliff lying naked on the lawn with his muse; everyone swimming naked in the dam.
My greatest education came from sitting at the dining table, listening to my parents and the other artists - Fred Williams, Tucker, Nolan - talking. Next morning, people and conversations would be dissected as John cooked Spanish omelette. It taught me about commitment, honesty, who's being real and who isn't.
At 12, we moved to an isolated valley in Dural, outside Sydney. I missed my contemporaries and felt
intimidated by the enormous personality of my father. John sent me to board at The King's School and,
luckily, I loved it.
My greatest embarrassment was Dad turning up to watch me play football. Always late, he'd plough his
four-wheel drive onto the playing field, then emerge wearing beret, parrot-red vest, long scarf, Parisian
cords, Spanish boots. I'd be packing into a scrum, and some front-rower would yell, 'Look at Olsen's old
man - must be a poofter!' By game's end, all the mothers were surrounding John, and all the fathers had
mustered together. I'd yell, 'So who's the poofter now?'
When I opened my first small gallery, he'd give me the odd Olsen to sell, saying I had to prove myself. He put me through the hard yards. But I've been his sole Sydney dealer since 1996. I had to work through thinking, 'Everyone will say I'm riding on my father's back' - then deciding, 'Bugger it, we both want this, I know him best and can do a better job for him than the others.'
I'm reading a book on Matisse and his son Pierre. Pierre opened a gallery in New York in the 1930s and
father-son/artist-dealer similarities in our relationship - but we weren't as grand and famous as Matisse and ierre Matisse.
John responded, 'Son - just wait!'
He is a highly emotional, exuberant man, a romantic, whose work goes through periods of self-doubt and
discovery. His life has been full of great love and great tragedy. My younger sister, Louise, and I found it
very painful when our parents split, but I had 19 years of sound family life, and they've remained good
friends.
John and I are great mates; we see a lot of each other and he still kisses me and calls me 'darling'.
One of my guiltiest memories is Dad dropping me back at boarding school and trying to kiss me goodbye. I was at an awkward stage of puberty, and couldn't get out of the car fast enough. He grasped my hand, tears brimming in his eyes, and asked: 'What's wrong, darling?' We're kissing again now.
John: Tim had this sensuality; he was a very uncomplicated child. At Watsons Bay, the question was,
'Where is he?' He was always Nature Boy, out exploring the beach, watching the fishermen and their catch at the wharf. My main idea on raising children is to be honest. Teach care and consideration, nurture, but don't over-instruct. I had no theories on fathering - I'd had nil fathering from my own father. He had a terrible time at war and never coped with life afterwards. The suffering for my mother was terrible, and it took me a long time to understand.
I didn't deliberately try to give Tim things I never had - I just enjoyed being a father. I took him round all the galleries and he was always allowed into my studio; indeed, as a three-year-old he painted on three of my paintings - I'm not saying which. It looked all right, so I left it in. Tim's main complaint was there was never any junk food in the fridge. I'd be chopping onions and garlic to make Spanish omelettes for breakfast and he'd want a wet Weet-Bix. But he's learned to be a great cook by watching, the same way he learned so much else growing up in an artistic milieu.
His eye is honed from constantly looking at good art, beautiful things, and appreciating a good lifestyle.
Tim was really quite a good painter, but he didn't have that obsessive drive to become an artist. From age four, he had this single-minded notion of being a dealer.
Becoming a dealer is a minefield:
it requires huge skill and knowledge. I think the best lookers and managers of art are those who've spent
time in the engine room, and understand the process of how art is made.
I was happy to support him while he got started, but he had to build up a stable of artists and not just rely on me - he knew that. Tim tells me his weakest point is that he's inherited every bit of his father's sensuality and romanticism. Reckons it gets him into trouble. I tell him, 'Son, it never got me into any trouble - it was just inconvenience.'
I counsel him that there are two types of people in this world - lovers and others, and you know what you can do with the others! Life is about learning to travel in the valleys as well as the peaks. Stay positive, don't ever become consumed with revenge or jealousy, learn to turn the pages over and get on with life.
Sometimes my son tries to father me, give me advice about life and love, and I just answer, 'Yes darling, yes darling, you tell me.' He's gained a lot in maturity and authority in the past few years. Sometimes he's wiser and stronger than I am; sometimes that surprises me. My baby boy has flown the nest and I'm proud of him. He'll dominate me in the end.