If John Olsen had drawn up a checklist of advice to younger artists, he would have emphasised the following points.
One: Spend dedicated time in the studio. Olsen worked hard and consistently all his life, right up until the weekend before his death on Tuesday at his home near Bowral, aged 95. "You must be in that studio as much as possible," he once said. "If there's a disaster, that's only one day and you start again tomorrow. But there you are in the studio and whilst ever you're there, something can happen."
Two: Read widely and engage with the wider world. Olsen was passionate and knowledgeable about poetry and literature, and could quote it off the top of his head, usually while holding a wine glass aloft.
Three: Keep a journal. Olsen established this lifelong habit in 1957, when he arrived in Majorca and was struck by its beauty.
Four: When all else fails, return to nature. The frogs and insects that leap about in Olsen's artworks are testament to his philosophy of the interconnectedness of all things. The landscape – for example, the cyclical filling and emptying of Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre – gifted him an endless supply of inspiration.
All these points were touchstones in Olsen's development as an outwardly ebullient, but sometimes privately troubled, voice in Australian culture, according to Dr Deborah Hart, head curator of Australian art at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA).
Hart curated the National Gallery of Victoria's Olsen retrospective in 1991 and has written numerous books about the artist; she understood his motivations better than most.
Olsen's lifestyle was ultimately painful for some of those close to him, who felt they ran second to his voracious hunger to make art.
But Hart says Olsen's unrelenting commitment to living a life immersed in culture stands as an example of how to reap everything an artistic life has to offer, if only you are inquisitive and open enough.
"John's legacy is to encourage artists to be true to themselves and develop their distinctive ways of looking at the world," Hart says.
"He believed strongly in a commitment to dedicated time in the studio – to a daily practice of drawing, painting, reading poetry and writing in his diary."
Olsen believed that reading widely was essential nourishment for an artist; he also believed in art having some philosophical grounding.
"He was keenly interested in Zen philosophy and ideas of chi and of fullness and emptiness, which informed his art and found a direct correspondence with his experience of Lake Eyre in flood and in drought," says Hart.
"His love of poetry was legendary. I'm not sure how many times I heard him quote Gerard Manley Hopkins's [Pied Beauty]: 'Glory be to God for dappled things …' – the idea of things 'fickle, freckled' and various, finding affinities with his approach to painting and drawing."
Dylan Thomas and Emily Dickinson were also much admired.
"For him poetry was about the essence of things and states of being, of light and dark, and the nuances in between. It was an anchor and an ongoing inspiration," Hart says.
Music, including opera, also brought impetus to Olsen's ways of working.
Always curious, he was open to collaborating across a range of media: He worked alongside skilled printmakers to bring off brilliant works on paper; he painted on ceramics before the kiln completed the creative process; he undertook tapestry commissions with the Australian Tapestry Workshop (formerly the Victorian Tapestry Workshop).
"All of these aspects point to ideas around the diverse and enriching possibilities of what a life in art has to offer," Hart says.
Olsen's black dog
Raconteur. Bon vivant. Lover of the kitchen arts. All those sides of Olsen's character were true. But there was a darker side to his personality, too.
His final major exhibition, John Olsen: Goya's Dog, staged at the National Art School (NAS) Gallery in 2021, spotlit the art that sprang from the less expansive and more anxious parts of Olsen's personality.
Curator Steven Alderton, NAS's director and CEO, told ABC Arts he was interested in "John's history of having, let's say, the black dog follow him round at times".
(The exhibition's title had a double meaning of sorts, referencing Francisco de Goya's famously enigmatic The Drowning Dog, 1820-23, in the Prado, Madrid).
In the process of putting the exhibition together, Olsen remarked to Alderton that great art is made not just at the highs, but also at the lows.
"In those deep, depressive, unknown spaces, you find another energy, another place to go to," Alderton says.
"So we wanted to gather that body of work. But it wasn't a survey show. The idea was he was still making work, and he made five new works for the show, only a few weeks and months before it opened. So we were talking about his practice, and he's re-imagining and making new work in that space, to continue the momentum of those ideas."
A fiery critic
Olsen cared about the art scene, and often spoke out about what he perceived were its failings. In 1953, he led a protest by art students against the conservatism of the Archibald Prize, which continued to celebrate an 'academic' style of portraiture by artists such as William Dargie.
In 2005, Olsen won the Archibald Prize himself — but with a very contemporary painting that evoked uncertainty and reflection: Self-portrait Janus-faced.
In 2017, when Mitch Cairns was awarded the Archibald Prize for a portrait of his partner, many were horrified when Olsen burst out in the media with his view that Cairns' painting was "superficial" and "totally bland".
When asked if his comments could be interpreted as sour grapes, Olsen replied: "How can it be sour grapes when I am the richest grape?"
Did his outburst about Cairns put the younger generation off him?
Alderton thinks not: "Because in this art world there's too much vanilla.
"We want to hear a voice, a lively, energetic, critical debate where ideas are put forward … and that's what John was doing. A lot of people were concerned about that, and I know it had an influence on Mitch, but I think Mitch saw the value of it ultimately."
A generous mentor
Conversely, Olsen could be incredibly encouraging to young artists if he felt their work showed promise. In 2010, when former champion athlete Sophie Cape was graduating from the NAS, she won the John Olsen Prize for Figure Drawing.
Olsen's son Tim Olsen also spotted Cape's work at the graduate show that night, and offered her an exhibition at his gallery. Olsen Gallery still represents her.
It was the start of what Cape calls a "subtle mentorship" from John Olsen.
"He was really supportive and encouraging about just doing what I wanted to do, not worrying about what other people think, and about the enjoyment of the process," Cape says.
"He talked about going to the studio for a play. That's what I do; I go out into the bush and play with the elements and nature. For both of us, the process of making the work is the best bit, rather than the end result."
Olsen was always keen to speak to Cape when he found an enlightening piece of poetry.
"He used to do this beautiful thing where he'd just randomly call me and recite a poem to me that inspired him, and that he thought I'd really like and would suit my work or where I was at or just inspire me," Cape says.
"A couple of days later, the book of that poet would arrive in the mail."
A book of Seamus Heaney's poetry, the last one Olsen sent, will no doubt be treasured by Cape, who lives at Gerringong.
Olsen's ongoing influence
NAS CEO and director Steven Alderton says there is still a "reverence" for Olsen among present-day art students, who would see him as someone who "invents ideas on canvas".
NAS graduate Nicole Kelly, a young painter who lives in Woonona (south of Sydney), counts herself as "a big fan of Olsen's work" and says he and his contemporaries Elisabeth Cummings and Fred Williams shaped the way she sees the Australian landscape.
Kelly says Olsen's sometimes vast canvases opened the way for her to use large scale to communicate "through gesture with a bodily response, not just held in the head and wrist".
Part of Olsen's legacy was to show that an artist can dig deeper and deeper every time they make paintings, "and through that process, impact the life of others," Kelly says.
Olsen's philosophy of following your dreams is being lived out by artist and NAS graduate Dan Kyle, who lives in a shipping container in the bush at picturesque Kurrajong Heights, in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.
Kyle often thinks of Olsen when he suspects himself of overthinking his work, or dwelling too much on what his eventual audience will think.
"If you want to make a gutsy painting, you just look at John Olsen's stuff," Kyle said.
"There's so much aliveness in the work."
Kyle only met Olsen in passing at one of his celebratory exhibition openings at the Olsen Gallery.
He learned of Olsen's passing through artist Luke Sciberras's Instagram post. Despite not really knowing Olsen, Kyle says he felt the loss in a visceral way.
"When rockstars die, everyone's so connected to them even though they've never met them. But you feel it."
