Title
Dylan's country
1957
Artist
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Details
- Place where the work was made
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Spain
- Date
- 1957
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 92.0 x 72.5 cm stretcher; 112.2 x 93.0 x 6.5 cm frame
- Signature & date
Not signed. Not dated.
- Credit
- Purchased 1958
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 9664
- Copyright
- © Art Gallery of New South Wales
- Artist information
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John Olsen
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
Inspired by the Welsh writer Dylan Thomas, Olsen embarked on a series of works in 1957, from his studio in Ibiza, Spain, which strongly related to Thomas' play 'Under Milk Wood'. Olsen saw the possibility of creating a total impression of place through suggestion and an evocation of mood and atmosphere, which would allow for an imaginative response by the viewer.
In an introduction to his 1958 exhibition held at Macquarie Galleries in Sydney, he wrote:
"... the landscapes which have fascinated me more recently ... belong to my 'Seaport' series and I feel in paintings like 'Dylan's country' that one gets a feeling of landscape as a totality as opposed to the Renaissance ideal 'here I stand; where I look is landscape'. This is too visual, and its basic flaw is that it does not inhabit the landscape. Questions come to my mind; What is it like to get a totality of the Riverina, the Dead Heart and other parts of our wonderful landscape - to travel through, to feel the rise and fall of hill and plain, to circumvent, to come back where I have been before: I cannot help thinking of Klee's lead when he said: 'The line goes for a holiday'."The idea of taking the line on an imaginary journey through a landscape, of experiencing nature and observing it at once from high above and microscopically, have remained vital elements of Olsen's work.
Australian Art Department, AGNSW, 2000
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Places
Where the work was made
Spain
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Exhibition history
Shown in 5 exhibitions
John Olsen (1958), Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, Aug 1958 -
Purchases and Acquisitions for 1958, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 11 Feb 1959–08 Mar 1959
Maitland Local Centenary Art Exhibition: Paintings by artists from the Hunter Valley Region (1963), Maitland Town Hall, , 23 Sep 1963–27 Sep 1963
John Olsen retrospective (1991-92), National Gallery of Victoria [St Kilda Road], Melbourne, 01 Nov 1991–02 Feb 1992
John Olsen retrospective (1991-92), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 08 May 1992–28 Jun 1992
Australian icons: twenty artists from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 04 Aug 2000–03 Dec 2000
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Bibliography
Referenced in 7 publications
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Art Gallery of New South Wales, Purchases and Acquisitions for 1958 National Art Gallery of N.S.W., Sydney, 1958, 13. cat.no. 22
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Deborah Hart, Brought to Light: Australian Art 1850–1965 from the Queensland Art Gallery collection, '"Come with me on this journey". John Olsen Journey into the You Beaut Country no. 2', pg. 280-285, Brisbane, 1998, 280, 282 (colour illus.), 283.
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Deborah Hart, John Olsen, 'Early travels abroad', pg. 32-47, Sydney, 1991, 38, 39 (colour illus.). cat.no. 16
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Virginia Spate, John Olsen, 'John Olsen', pg. 1-14, Melbourne, 1963, 7, 17, (illus.). plate no. 11
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Kathie Sutherland, Brett Whiteley: A sensual lilne 1957-67, Victoria, 2010, 30.
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Author Unknown, Maitland Local Centenary Art Exhibition: Paintings by artists from the Hunter Valley Region (1963), Maitland, 1963. cat.no. 15; Lent by the Art Gallery of N.S.W.
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Editor Unknown (Editor), Bulletin, Sydney, 13 Aug 1958.
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