John Olsen / Australia b.1928 / Journey into the you beaut country no.2 1961 / Oil on composition board / 185.8 x 124.2cm / Acquired 1961. H.C. Richards Memorial Prize (winning entry) / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © QAGOMA

John Olsen
Journey into the you beaut country no.2 1961

On Display: QAG, Gallery 12

Journey into the you beaut country no.2 1961 is a major painting in John Olsen’s body of work and in the history of Australian art. It is one of a group of works known as the ‘You beaut country’ series and was the winning entry in the Queensland Art Gallery’s 1961 HC Richards Memorial Prize.

Judged that year by Russell Drysdale, the choice caused a furore with public opinion sharply divided on the merits of contemporary art.

Neither wholly abstract nor wholly figurative, the works in the ‘You beaut country’ series are landscapes of the mind and the imagination, infused with a fluid, dynamic energy. The worlds they depict relate to nature, memory, experience and the psychic drive in the act of creation.

Born in Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1928, John Olsen is one of Australia’s greatest living artists. His practice includes painting, drawing, pottery, printmaking, tapestry design and creative writing, but he is best known for his Australian landscapes. Olsen’s influences include poetry, literature, Chinese art, Asian philosophy and, more recently, space exploration and surrealism.

Olsen studied at the Julian Ashton School in Sydney in the early 1950s. Following his first exhibition in 1955, he travelled abroad with funds raised by private subscribers, studying printmaking in Paris under SW Hayter before spending two years in Spain. In 1970, Olsen was commissioned to paint the Sydney Opera House mural, Salute to Five Bells 1970–73. He won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting in 1969 and 1985, and received an OBE in 1977 for his services to the arts.