Figure in a Landscape 2005

JOHN OLSEN (1928-2023)

Figure in a Landscape 2005

oil on linen
76.0 x 91.0 cm; 85.5 x 100.5 cm (framed)
signed and dated lower left: John Olsen 05
signed and inscribed verso: 'Figure in a Landscape'/ John Olsen

Provenance:
Metro5 Gallery, Melbourne
Private collection, Sydney, 2006

Reference:
McGregor, K., Unfinished Journey, Macmillan, Melbourne, 2006, p.139 (illus.)

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Kylie Norton with cataloguing this work

Estimate: $45000 - 65000

2005 was a landmark year for John Olsen, with his debut Archibald Prize win with Self-portrait Janus-faced. At age 77, this was a firm reminder to the Australian public and art community that the man widely heralded as Australia’s greatest living painter, was still operating at his peak.

Figure in a Landscape was informed by a 2003 painting expedition to the Coorong, 156 kilometres south-east of Adelaide. The Coorong is a protected national parkland where the flow of fresh water from the Murray River pools in Lake Alexandrina and a vast network of coastal lagoons, separated from the Southern Ocean by a series of long and interlocking sand dunes.

For Olsen, journeying to far flung locations around Australia and being immersed in the bush with great regularity was at the heart of his practice and produced his most iconic output. Olsen visited this location for the first time in 1971 as part of the crew for the ABC series Wild Australia, where he joined wildlife experts for 12 weeks across four locations, photographing and studying the life and behaviours of many Australian birds, with Olsen creating a series of sketches which featured heavily on the program. One of the works he produced, The Coorong 1971, later went on to be presented to Queen Elizabeth II by New South Wales premier, Sir Robert Askin, at the opening of New South Wales House in London in 1972.1

In 2005 an excursion was made with art consultant Ken McGregor, art critic and artist Jeff Makin (born 1943), and local South Australian artist David Dridan (born 1932). The expedition was documented for the purpose of Ken McGregor’s 2006 book Unfinished Journey. McGregor writes, ‘Olsen, Australia’s grand master of the visual arts, could have chosen anywhere in the world for his Unfinished Journey. He picked the Coorong, as an opportunity to revisit the places that had inspired many of his great paintings of the 1980s Clarendon period.’2 Olsen returned to his Bowral studio in regional New South Wales with a treasure trove of drawings and preliminary paintings, which he later reworked into a final series of studio paintings of the Coorong.

Figure in a Landscape achieves the exemplary exhilaration that we have come to expect from the late giant of Australian Modernism. The sensation that you are not viewing the landscape passively, you are truly in it, surrounded on every side by its opulent splendour. Figure in a Landscape retains this vibration, painted atop a stark, vibrant yellow ground, the instantly familiar warmth and light of the Australian landscape is provided in spades.

A mixture of thin washes provides the topographical structure of place, while the confident and musical lines of colour in every direction punctuate the picture with a sense of motion and transient life. It is a dance between positive and negative space, with all unessential elements stripped away and imbued instead with the reminiscence of the location in all its richness. This play with objectivity being referred to by Olsen as ‘perfect equilibrium.’3

The Coorong is a place of constant motion and change, with over 200 species of bird flocking to its lakes and tributaries every year, some travelling distances of over 10,000 kilometres just to breed and feast in its lagoons. Painted from an aerial perspective, this event informs the central ‘figure’ in the picture, a bird in flapping in flight, dissecting the landscape in search of a place of rest and salvation. Taking cues from his lifelong fascination with Buddhism and the principles of drawing vitality out of the void, Figure in a Landscape is a quintessential example of Olsen at his best.

Footnotes

1. McGregor, K., Unfinished Journey, Macmillan Art Publishers, Melbourne, 2006, p.149
2. Ibid.
3. John Olsen quoted in Musgrove, N., ‘Study of Wild Australia’, The Australian Women’s Weekly, 16 August 1972, p.55

Rory Simmons

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