NEWCASTLE'S unshakeable reputation as a steel town, even all these years after BHP's departure, has always given short shrift to its cultural contributions. But in John Olsen, the Hunter offered the origin of a titan in the art world who will not be forgotten.
While he may hail from this region, his education took Olsen to Sydney. He also spent years in Europe before returning and cementing his place with the "You beaut country" series. But while he spent his time away from regional NSW, the pull of the Australia that shines beyond the city lights was one that never relented on his work.
"To be an Australian landscape painter is to be an explorer," he said in 2022 after donating several of his works to a regional NSW gallery. "There is so much to look at and observe about the Australian landscape, how it varies from tropical to the coastal fringe, and the interior.
"It's so multiple. It's a beautiful animal, that landscape."
Olsen described his own work as a form of compulsion which began for him at the age of four. In the nine intervening decades that drive delivered the artist a slew of prizes that read like a list of the best on offer in Australia: Archibald, Wynne, Sulman. His Salute to Five Bells hangs in the Sydney Opera House, an icon within an icon on a harbour he often painted.
Fittingly, those same sails will be illuminated in tribute to him at next month's Vivid Sydney festival.
National Gallery of Australia director Nick Mitzevich, himself a former Novocastrian, has hailed Olsen's work for its "quintessential Australianness".
"He harnessed a great sense of intimacy in his subjects and drew people in and kept them captivated. He was also a poet, a pragmatist, and a man of great wisdom. He was always encouraging everyone he met with his charisma and generosity," Mr Mitzevich told the Sydney Morning Herald.
The Hunter's reciprocal affection for Olsen was perhaps never clearer than on the artist's 89th birthday, when Lake Macquarie cake decorator Charmaine Sheehan recreated his painting King Sun & The Hunter for him to share on a visit to the Newcastle Art Gallery. Olsen was touched by the turnout, noting his plans to visit Newcastle "at least two or three times a year".
Both this city and art lovers will miss him, but the sweetness of his work endures.
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