Hearing that John Olsen is no more is like learning that Uluru has disappeared overnight. A towering presence in Australian art, a larger-than-life personality, Olsen has been a dominant figure in our cultural landscape from the 1960s until the present. Although 95 can be considered a good innings, the artist may have spoiled his own chance for a century with an impulsive trip to central Australia in September, where he ended up in intensive care with a chest infection. His story might have ended like Tolstoy, who died at a lonely railway station, a day’s journey from home. It would have been a disaster to expire so far from the studio.
John Olsen in his Southern Highlands studio during lockdown in 2021. He continued to work until soon before his death. Tim Olsen
