In 1957 a
Sydney businessman who recognised the immense talent of the young John
Olsen paid him to go to Majorca and paint. The businessman sold most of
the paintings for a profit and Olsen was transformed by the influences
of European art and the Mediterranean. In Majorca Olsen began a journal,
which he has continued ever since, a fluid combination of words and drawings
recording the events of an extraordinarily rich life.

This book
is based on these journals, and reproduces many of the drawings from them.
Olsen's life has been marked by a generosity of spirit, by the vitality
of his friendships with men, including many of Australia's leading painters,
and with women, and by his personal struggles which have led to some of
the greatest works of Australian landscape painting.

These include
his Lake Eyre paintings and more recent works such as Golden Summer, Clarendon.
His mural, Salute to Five Bells, inspired by Kenneth Slessor's poem, is
in the Sydney Opera House.

'John Olsen
is Australia's greatest living painter. He is also a great raconteur.
I loved this book.' Alistair McAlpine

• Stories
  about Sidney
  Nolan, Fred
  Williams, William
  Dobell, Albert
  Tucker, Judy
  Cassab, Paul
  Keating, Rudy
  Komon . . . Olsen has known them all.
• The struggle
  to blend the influences of European art, abstract expressionism, and
  the Australian landscape.
• His crowded
  personal life.
• The book
  is printed in two colours and contains sixty of the drawings from the
  journals interspersed with the text.
• Sixteen
  pages of full colour reproductions.