Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

In the year of its completion John Olsen entered Journey into the You Beaut Country no.2 into the H. C. Richards Memorial Prize at the Queensland Art Gallery.23 Among the conditions were that entries 'shall be paintings in any medium reflecting an aspect of Australia or Australian life'.24When Russell Drysdale, judge of the Prize, selected Olsen's work as the winning entry, 'furore erupted' in the opinion pages of the local press.25There were numerous cartoons on the subject and letters were sent to the Courier-Mail. One antagonistic correspondent, H. D. Price, suggested that future art competitions be divided into two sections, 'orthodox and contemporary', stating, 'For years I have cleaned paintbrushes on my workshop door ... I shall enter it for next year's Richards' Prize — in the contemporary section'.26Drysdale's suggestion that the Queensland Art Gallery should acquire some of the works from the Prize added fuel to the fire. As 'Anti-Beaut' from Newmarket wrote: If — as Mr. Drysdale is quoted as saying — 'the trustees do not take the opportunity to acquire some of these paintings' I'm quite sure many of us would appreciate the alternative he offers — 'it would be a long time before I'll be back' — always assuming he's allowed to get away alive.27 Laurie Thomas, then Director of the Queensland Art Gallery, was quick to defend contemporary art and the works in the Richards Prize exhibition in a public lecture, on television and in an extensive article to the Courier-Mail. If paintings were rejected it was not because they were old or new, but only because they were not up to the standard of the ones hung ... The good thing about the Richards Prize exhibition is that it represents some of the very best work being done now by some of the very best painters in Australia or, indeed, anywhere. . 28 Dr Gertrude Langer, art critic for the Courier-Mail, noted there was 'no doubt that the personalities of Drysdale ... and Mr. Thomas, the director, have attracted the best entries ever in the H. C. Richards and L. J. Harvey competitions'. She felt that Drysdale's task as judge was difficult but approved of his choice of the winning entry: 'The lourney into the You Beaut Country' is an exhilarating experience. Let us start at the top of the painting and creep down. The most elusive things are happening all the way and it is hard to stop anywhere until we reach the end of the journey somewhere in the left corner... The line is tough, the washy colours chiefly neutral — but given value by the warm yellow and the white spaces of the ground — and then will come an awareness that, in a curious and wondrous way, Australia is all there, and that this is a picture that could have been painted only here. And that Drysdale was right. And that it fulfils the conditions of the contest29 While in Journey into theYou Beaut Country no.2 Olsen's palette of browns, ochres and warm matt yellows are suggestive of the dry earth of the interior, in People who live in theYou Beaut Country 1362 (private collection), we are drawn into the environment of Sydney with its interconnecting landforms and harbour. Once again, images emerge from the landform, although here the faces and figures wearing hats and riding bicycles are more directly associated with the urban environment. Olsen had spent much of his life in Sydney and by 1963 he was living at Watsons Bay. In many works of the 1960s and beyond he explored the feeling of this place attached to the ocean — in overview and in its intimate manifestations. While in some instances the references to Sydney Harbour are explicit, in the discursive brush drawing Seaflux 1963 they are more implicit. One has the sense of Olsen applying the lessons he had learned in relation to intuitive exploration — as marks coalesce and splinter; as the thick dark looping line travels across the surface of the paper, creating circumferences and moving on again. Through the layering of dark and light, washy areas and multiple striations of vibrant blue pastel, Olsen creates a sense of transparency and discovery, approximating the feeling of looking into rock pools on the beach. In works such as Sea flux, with its rolling calligraphy and apparent informality, Olsen revealed an affinity with an artist he had long admired, Ian Fairweather. In his desire to attain 'a new figuration' Olsen shared Fairweather's belief that 'complete Russell Drysdale and Laurie Thomas assessing entries in the 1961 H. C. Richards Prize, Queensland Art Gallery. Photograph courtesy Courier-Mail, Brisbane 284 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965