My dear friend, the great Australian painter John Olsen was, at 77, the oldest artist to win the Archibald Prize.
In 2019, over a long lunch at the Catalina restaurant in Rose Bay, overlooking Sydney Harbour, I was with John and Barry Humphries when they talked about what might happen to John’s 2005 Archibald Prize winner. Self-portrait with Janus face.
As Barry and I had been sober for fifty years, it will come as no surprise that it was John who drank so much!
That afternoon, at his favorite restaurant, John drank moderately. Moderationhe was pleased to tell us, it’s the name of a pub in Reading where he drank once when he was in England.
John and Barry thought that after his death it would be a good idea for his most famous painting to be somehow made available to the nation.
We are pleased to report that just over a year after John’s death at the age of 95, his daughter Louise, who is a renowned designer and painter, and his son Tim Olsen, who runs a leading art gallery in Sydney, they presented us Self-portrait with Janus face to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Tim and Lou’s decision was perfectly timed.
By chance, their offer occurred right after TArchibald’s great exhibition ended up visiting major art galleries across Australia. It featured the cream of Archibald’s previous winning photographs, including John’s remarkable self-portrait.
John had a long history with the Archibald Prize, having served for many years as a judge and trustee.
Although he had already won the Wynne Landscape Prize twice and the Sulman Prize once, the Archibald was his greatest artistic (but not personal) highlight. A deep understanding of the latter can be found in Tim Olsen’s revealing memoir, Son of the Brush.
John’s artistic statement about his self-portrait is found in a poem he wrote shortly after winning the Archibald in 2005.
Janus face by John Olsen:
“Sitting this afternoon in the studio,
Summer is over.
Now is the time for freckled leaves and longer shadows.
Men and women after sixty years old With flip-flops,
Pausing on the stairs, Janus faced.
Self delights with well-worn brush
On an old palette.
Time runs out and defeat is avoided. Janus faced.”
John explained that Janus, the Roman god of doors, passages and bridges, is usually depicted with two heads facing in opposite directions. At the Catalina, then empty of other customers, Barry Humphries joked: “Roscoe, that was certainly true of the three of us – in our heyday.”
As John wryly wrote, “I think this poem sheds light in dark places. Informs the viewer. Janus had the ability to look back and forward and when you get to my age you have a lot to think about!”
With what I think has more than an element of truth, after not winning the prize in 1989, when his self-portrait Where am I going was a clear favourite, John referred to the Archibald as ‘a chook raffle’.
But when John won the prize, he was delighted.
In a sense, it’s ironic that John beat Archibald. This is because, as a rebellious student at Sydney’s National School of Art in 1957, he led a group of rising artists who protested against the judges responsible for awarding conservative Sir William Dargie the Archibald for the eighth time in a row!
Thirty students stormed the Art Gallery of New South Wales holding signs and chanting Don’t hang Dargie. Hang the judges.
Although some protesters may have been unaware, this was an early fight for modernism – of which John soon became the leading exponent. It’s telling that Dargie won his last Archibald Prize for a traditional portrait of the important Australian industrialist and founder of BHP, Essington Lewis, who was hardly a rebel like John.
As Tim Olsen recently told me, for years his father sang enthusiastically How much is that Dargie in the window? This imitated an extremely popular song from the 1950s, How much is that puppy in the window?
It’s so nice that Self-portrait with Janus face will be displayed, on public view, in the permanent 20th century collection at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
When so many lesser lights have been touched, it is a complete travesty that John Olsen has not been awarded our highest honour, the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).
Surely this should happen posthumously, and soon?
Postscript:
Some critics say an AC cannot be granted posthumously.
But this does not apply if someone was named before they died, which is the case with John Olsen.
– Article updated on October 8, 2024.
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