John Olsen
Ashley Crawford
1 May 2003
Lake Eyre continues to inspire artist John Olsen, writes Ashley Crawford. Standing on the edge of the wind-blasted Lake Eyre in late 2001, artist John Olsen flung his cane to the side. "Isn't this fantastic?," he cried, grinning broadly.
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Reporter : Max Cullen Producer: Catherine Hunter
30 June 2002
Painter John Olsen is unquestionably one of our greatest living artists and not only is he a great artist, but he has a reputation for good living. As NSW Art Gallery Director Edmund Capon says, "John is the most naturally gregarious spirit that has ever been created. It is his natural way to be an incurable optimist, to embrace everything and I think it was from him that I learnt my regular New Year's resolution which is to give up nothing and take up everything!"
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National Gallery of Australia
7 December 2000
The Director of the National Gallery of Australia, Dr Brian Kennedy, today announced the purchase of one of John Olsen's most significant paintings, Sydney Sun 1965. 'The Gallery is delighted that this magnificent work by one of Australia's most distinguished artists is now part of the National Collection for all Australians to enjoy', he said.
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Cynthia Banham
30 June 2000
"I felt like the horse that won the Melbourne Cup," the artist John Olsen declared yesterday. He was describing how he felt when his painting, Salute to Cerberus, fetched the highest price paid for an Olsen $486,500 at a Christies auction on Wednesday night. It went to a private buyer.
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Interviewed by Janet Hawley
8 January 2000
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.
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4 August 1999
The Art Gallery of NSW last night paid an auction-record price of $258,000 for a 1963 John Olsen painting which the artist hailed as one of his four or five best works. Art Gallery spokesman Mr Barry Pearce said Five Bells was "one of, if not, the Olsen masterpiece of thesixties". "We were overwhelmed by its freshness and its clarity of expression. It is an art-museum picture and a Sydney picture."
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David Crowe
13 August 1996
Australian artist John Olsen last night brought aesthetics to electronics, introducing new artworks that apply his trademark style to the latest digital mobile phones.
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Stephen Beaumont
1993
The Library is the proud possessor of a work by John Olsen which was kindly donated to the Barr Smith Library in 1991 by Mr and Mrs Max Harris. Born in Newcastle in 1928, John Olsen moved to Sydney in 1935. Between 1947 and 1953 he studied under John Passmore, painting portraits and still-lifes with a marked 'Cezanne-style cubism', a reaction to what he described as the prevailing 'boutique art' of the early 1950s.
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Robert Berlind
April 1993
During an early sojourn in Europe between 1957 and 1960, Australian painter John Olsen absorbed the influences of, among others, Hayter, Dubuffet, COBRA artists Lucebert, Jorn and Alechinsky, and Tapies. His work also shows affinities with Far Eastern art and demonstrates an interest in literature, particularly such Anglo-Celtic writers as Yeats, Thomas, Joyce and Beckett.
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