John Olsen is recognised nationally and internationally as one of Australia's most significant and accomplished artists. In this major publication on Olsen's art and life, Deborah Hart comprehensively surveys his development from his early work to the present, revealing this artist's extraordinary versatility and breadth of creative vision.

Few Australian artists paint and draw with the fluency and vitality of Olsen. From the time when his reputation was firmly established in the early 1960s with works such as his innovative, colloquial You Beaut Country series and evocations of Sydney Harbour, through his many journeys into regional Australia in the 1970s and 1980s, Olsen's passionate attachment to the local environment has continually revealed fresh insights into a sense of place.