John Olsen
(Australia, England, Spain, Portugal 21 Jan 1928– )
Dry salvages
- Location
- 20th & 21st c Australian art
- Further information
My painting takes on its particular abstract quality because only in this way can I express my search for direct mystical experience. There is the feeling of an abyss, a void between oneself and everything outside, and one has the impulse to bridge it. The thing which I always endeavour to express is an animistic quality – a certain mystical throbbing throughout nature.
John Olsen, 1956
Taking its name from the title of a poem by TS Eliot, 'Dry salvages' explores the idea of being immersed in the natural world – an idea which was essential to John Olsen’s approach to painting. The painting was shown in the benchmark
exhibition 'Direction I', held at Macquarie Galleries in Sydney in December 1956.- Year
- 1956
- Media
- Painting
- Medium
- oil on hardboard
- Dimensions
- 119.0 x 90.9cm board; 133.2 x 105.0 x 2.8cm frame
- Signature & date
- Signed and dated u.r. corner, black oil "John/ Olsen/ 56".
- Credit
- Gift of Mrs EM Gardiner in memory of her daughter Marie Gardiner 1972
- Accession number
- 68.1972
- Copyright
- © John Olsen. Licensed by Viscopy,Australia
