The lighting of the Sydney Opera House sails next month will act as a posthumous tribute to John Olsen, that rare artist who straddled the line between commercial and fine art.
Next month’s lighting of the Sydney Opera House sails with the artwork of John Olsen will become a tribute to the artist - one he viewed as his farewell to the nation.
“I can watch my work on the Opera House sails in my own private light show in a beautiful hotel room with my family all around me before going to bed and quietly drifting off forever,” Olsen told daughter Louise and son Tim only weeks ago when they suggested he watch the spectacle with them from a nearby hotel suite.Tim and Louise said: “Painting was our father’s life, and he was painting right up to the last in his studio, with friends calling in to see him, which he always loved.
“John was a believer, a true believer. He believed in you and I, and the peaks and troughs of the human condition. He said extraordinary art was made in the exalted highs - but also in the depths and fathoms of the unknown. His legacy includes eight paintings that hang in the State Theatre foyers of the Melbourne Arts Centre, all based on famous operas. Olsen had been approached by acclaimed stage designer John Truscott in 1984 to commission paintings for the soon-to-be-opened Victorian Arts Centre.
“As a rule of thumb, Australian modern and contemporary fine art collectors have tended to steer clear of purely abstract artworks, preferring to a large degree that paintings contain at least some figurative or landscape content,” Reid said.
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