Australian painter John Olsen dies at 95

Award-winning Australian artist John Olsen, who after living in Spain in the late 1950s painted the celebrated “Spanish Encounter” triptych, has died at the age of 95, family sources said.

The artist, born in 1928 in the city of Newcastle, some 170 kilometers north of Sydney, won, among other prizes, the Archibald in 2005 -one of the most recognized portrait awards in Australia- and was recognized with the Order of the British Empire in 1977 and the Order of Australia in 2001.

Olsen was mainly known for capturing landscapes in which he experimented with color, line and figuration, as defined by the portal of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

This gallery acquired in 1960 the oil painting “Spanish Encounter”, which highlights Olsen’s “vitality”, “derived from her experience in Spain combined with the pulsating activity of downtown Sydney life”.

The energetic artist lived in Europe between 1957 and 1960, a period in which he settled in Spain, and five years later he returned to that continent to spend a season in Portugal, another of his sources of inspiration.

After returning to Australia, he established himself as one of the main artists of the oceanic country with his series “You beaut country”, which would frame a vast work in which he would represent the landscapes and identity of his homeland.

Over the course of more than six decades as a painter, Olsen has accumulated numerous awards and has seen his work exhibited in renowned art galleries in Australia and abroad.

Likewise, the artist was known for his passion for painting and did not hide his obsession with art, which he developed when he was only four years old.

“Artists are born, not made,” he summarized after receiving the Order of Australia in 2001, one of the main recognitions of the oceanic country that seeks to “recognize Australian citizens and other people for their achievements or meritorious services.”