John Olsen

Sandra McGrath Three, testing, one, two, three.

John Olsen There's There's a whole There's a whole world generation on the artist as a hero, and, you know, the thing, um, you know, looking at it from the scan of time, is a disgrace. You know, the artist as an ego, an artist, um, who thinks he can change the world. And I just, I just really feel, you know, so much at the moment is an art, the artist as a participator in life's forces, life's dropping of leaves, life's water falling, you know. It's not this, this terrible thing, this scourge, that this sort of singular destructive genius Picasso left us.

Sandra McGrath Did he? Picasso was originator of that myth?

John Olsen No, no, it's a longstanding phenomenon, and it goes right back to the Renaissance.

Sandra McGrath Leonardo was a bit like that though, wasn't he?

John Olsen Leonardo, Michelangelo—

Sandra McGrath Leonardo was a bit of an egomaniac himself.

John Olsen and Michelangelo, and, um, Raphael.

Sandra McGrath Before that it didn't really happen. They were all craftsmen.

John Olsen It didn't happen, you see, and, um, that's, um, that's why, like, the art—we're speaking of Western art now, because the East never got into that kind of indulgence. Um, the, ah, that's why, when one looks, for example, at the Quattrocento, that it's so beautifully balanced. We look at...

Sandra McGrath They found another egomaniac.

John Olsen Well, uh, you know, Giotto, um, uh, I'm just trying to think of one who I've admired so much.

Sandra McGrath Duccio?

John Olsen Duccio, Cimabue, they're all, uh, uh, but there's one who who, uh, was the turning point, Masaccio.

Sandra McGrath Oh, Masaccio. Yeah.

John Olsen But there's always that, like, the ego of man is there. There's always a balance to it. There's always somehow that the forces are all, you know, are all sort of working, in which the ego is operating at a high level, but not over-high. But what happened, say, in the case of Michelangelo and, um, Raphael and Leonardo, and it it can be seen after their death, they were totally—what Michelangelo did, no one in Western sculpture up to the time of Rodin could could, uh, make any sense out of it, and yet they were all possessed by it. No one could make any sense out of Leonardo, and in a certain sense they can't even make it now.

Sandra McGrath Turn...

John Olsen And, um, but it it's that it's that sort of terribly destructive thing in the West, like Pollock is a victim of it, where the artist, where the, like, the impact of the artist's passion is really so so damn similar, even in even in its cyclic forms,

Sandra McGrath Mhm.

John Olsen uh, even in in its cyclic forms to the rounded forms that one sees in in in Michelangelo's figures. And his interest, there's an early Pollock drawing, a copy of Michelangelo, and, of course, it comes as no surprise at all. Do you know that drawing?

Sandra McGrath No, I don't.

John Olsen It's, well, it's in the Bryan Robertson book.

Sandra McGrath Oh, is it?

John Olsen There are, uh, about three three copies of, um, of Michelangelo. And, like, what it means is that Pollock had a great sympathy, a cowboy sympathy, to the artist as a hero, and I just think that, um...

Sandra McGrath Dylan did the same thing, the poet.

John Olsen Yes, yes. And, so, you know, I don't I don't want I don't want art to be the, um, you know, the metaphor of of the Western soul. I I I I think that there's an inbuilt...

Sandra McGrath They are, though.

John Olsen It's an inbuilt conceit in which it might be, you know, fine for you to say that, but the artist himself mustn't know it.

Sandra McGrath Well, that's possible. But it's obvious that it's true. It's a nice bit of expressing it, too, actually. Hate to tell you, you're doing your best. That's a good That's That's the title of a chapter.

John Olsen You've just provided the title for a chapter. Well, you see, um, for example, the, um, uh, the You Beaut Country is it's it's a kind of a dualism there because part of the artist as a hero is there, but there is one thing in which it begins to taper off is that the artist has also become part of the forces of nature. Like, you know, when one thinks, for example, Spring in the You Beaut Country, it's not looking at nature as a kind of, um, a phenomenal world. It's looking at nature also as a process. The Orientals always did that, by the way. The Orientals always, um, could understand the difference between the source of the river and and the bottom of the waterfall.

Sandra McGrath Because Leonardo, back to Leonardo, he had those incredible waves, curled, uh, water.

John Olsen Well, that's true, yes.

Sandra McGrath Waves, he he saw the interpenetration...

John Olsen See, Michelangelo has that, um, perhaps more than any other Western artist, you know. It's quite astonishing. But the but they're all drawings. It's It's most peculiar that they're never realised, like these drawings of the wave, or these anatomical drawings he did, um, you know, of, um, a child in the womb.

Sandra McGrath Mhm.

John Olsen Um, they're they're all like brilliant investigatory observations, but never ever realised in paintings.

Sandra McGrath Never...

John Olsen And so that process of thought was never realised, probably until the time of Klee.

Sandra McGrath You mean bringing the sort of the the two processes together?

John Olsen Mhm.

Sandra McGrath Sort of the hair of the, like, the hair of the Mona Lisa is the hair of the waves.

John Olsen Yes, but it's more of, well, that's that's more of a metaphor.

Sandra McGrath It is a metaphor, it is a sort of interchangeability...

John Olsen Rather than a process.

Sandra McGrath ...interchangeability of form, but it is. Well, we've got the tape machine going. We have to start at the very beginning.

John Olsen Just so it's working.

Sandra McGrath I know it's working. Total confidence machine. Uh, I start at the very beginning: where and the date, the street, the town, you were born. I know all of that stuff. I'm being polite. All right, I'm ready for the questions.

John Olsen Yeah. Um, Dawson Street, Newcastle. 52 Dawson Street, Newcastle.

Sandra McGrath What's the street like?

John Olsen It was a long, wide, middle-class street, uh, that, um, ran straight down from the top of, um, the, uh, rather large, appalling architecture of the Presbyterian church at at the top of the hill. Very near where the, um, cultural centre is, or the Art Gallery of Newcastle.

Sandra McGrath Was it a one-storey brick house or a two-storey or—

John Olsen No, it was one, it was a one-storey, by Newcastle standards, um, uh, a comfortable house. Um, I really, like, I I I don't think Newcastle has anything really to do with me in terms of artistic development, because, um, it's all very well for the Jesuits to say that give me a child for seven years and you can have him, but I left there at seven. And, uh, when I really think about it...

Sandra McGrath Did you come to Sydney at seven?

John Olsen Yes. And, um...

Sandra McGrath Why did you come to Sydney?

John Olsen Oh, well, my father had a job, um, with a, you know, a retail store then, and he was offered a higher job in the same company who was opening up in Sydney.

Sandra McGrath Let's go back to that. Your mother's maiden name was?

John Olsen Sorry, this is not a CIA...

Sandra McGrath Mhm.

John Olsen ...um, Esma.

Sandra McGrath E-S-M-A?

John Olsen Yeah.

Sandra McGrath Surname, her first name?

John Olsen McCubben, which is Irish.

Sandra McGrath No kidding.

John Olsen It's it's It's one of the Mc's which is Irish.

Sandra McGrath And was she born in Australia?

John Olsen Yes.

Sandra McGrath And when did her grandfather her mother and father come to Australia, from where, and, um...

John Olsen Um, I don't know.

Sandra McGrath You don't know.

John Olsen We can find it out, well, in the next chapter.

Sandra McGrath How How old is your mother now?

John Olsen She'd be 73, 3.

Sandra McGrath Yeah. Her father's name was?

John Olsen Um, Henry.

Sandra McGrath Her middle name?

John Olsen Rufus.

Sandra McGrath Rufus. And was he born...

John Olsen He was Australian.

Sandra McGrath Mhm.

John Olsen But his father was Swedish.

Sandra McGrath And and his mother? I mean, his grandmother?

John Olsen His grandmother was, uh, Irish.

Sandra McGrath And they came to Australia. Was he a first-generation Australian, or...?

John Olsen Yes.

Sandra McGrath Meaning that his parents came Your father's parents came here to Australia. Do you know when, and from where?

John Olsen Um, the, my grandfather came on a Swedish windjammer about 1878

Sandra McGrath As a seaman?

John Olsen as a a seaman during the gold rush period.

Sandra McGrath And he stayed in Australia?

John Olsen And he stayed in Australia and never ever got any gold.

Sandra McGrath And found your grandmother, whose name you probably don't know, do you?

John Olsen No, I don't know. No.

Sandra McGrath Anyway, he married an Irish woman that he met in Sydney, Newcastle?

John Olsen No, um, in, um, a place called Tingha, which is, um, near Inverell.

Sandra McGrath And why was he What was he doing in Inverell?

John Olsen He was, um, after gold and tin.

Sandra McGrath And he didn't get any, so what did he do then?

John Olsen Never got any. Never was.

Sandra McGrath And he produced your father,

John Olsen Mhm.

Sandra McGrath and how many brothers and sisters?

John Olsen Um, three brothers and, um, two sisters.

Sandra McGrath Five children. And they lived where, when he when that When your father was a boy, where did he live?

John Olsen Uh, he lived in the country, in Inverell. Mhm. This is all before the First World War.

Sandra McGrath You think so?

John Olsen No, but, you know, it's just... uh, I was just thinking that, uh, of that myself, how how different the world was, but, um, his first job was working, um, uh, as a blacksmith.

Sandra McGrath Your father or grandfather was a blacksmith?

John Olsen No, my father. Your father's first job was in Inverell. Mhm. Then what? That you know about him? And, um... So, they weren't see on the land in some way? They had they No, they were town dwellers, and, um, I think that they, um, times were difficult, uh, particularly as my grandfather left um, my grandmother with all those children. So, your grandmother brought up your father on her own basically? Well, yes. And so they all went to work very very young, and went to work at 12. To get your man work. Um, Rather than the hope of an academic career. If they could become plumbers, you'd be so delighted, wouldn't you? After blacksmith's job. You'd love them, wouldn't you? After the blacksmith's job, where did he go, do you know? And, um, well, I'm, they then went to, um, Maitland, and I'm not quite certain of the reason of the connecting things, so I'll have to talk to my mother about that. But then later he went to Newcastle, and, um, he was, um, You see, there's there's an intervening break which I don't know. It's interesting doing this because I really should find out. Uh, and he sort of joined this retail store, What What's the name of it? which was called Currey Clothing Company. A The clothing or just a clothing company? Currey Clothing Company.

Sandra McGrath Cooee Clothing Company. Cooee Clothing Company. Cooee Clothing. In Newcastle? Yep.

John Olsen And he did very well there. You know, the shop was successful and they opened...

Sandra McGrath As a salesman? Yeah. As a wholesale salesman? No, retail. Retail. Retail. And he, he did

John Olsen very well there and the company did very well there and then this of course brings us to the time when the owner of the shops, they had three shops in Newcastle, decided then to open in Sydney.

Sandra McGrath And where did he meet your mother? In Maitland. And when were they married? In 1937. And they then moved to Newcastle, what, three or four years after that or...

John Olsen Yes, they moved to Newcastle within a year of... Oh, look, I'll have to really check this out, if it's important. Oh, it's interesting. Hmm? Everything's important.

Sandra McGrath Everything holds your story. Hmm. He met her in Maitland, they moved to Newcastle where he took a position in a retail store. They had how many children? Two. You and a sister or a brother? Sister. What's her name? Ann. Ann? Carol. Carol. You lived in Newcastle for seven years? Yep. And then you moved to Australia, to Sydney. Yeah. And when did your, your father then, what went on? Where did you move when you moved at seven years old to Sydney? Where did you live here? You couldn't believe it.

John Olsen Um Concord West at... Concord West. I think there's, there's one thing that ought to be said, you know, just at this, at this given point, because it is um relevant. There was just absolutely no artistic influence at all in the house. There were no pictures, there were no books. I'd never been to an art gallery. There was no sort of cultural milieu that there might be other alternatives from from the confines of their just day to day living. Where in Concord did you live? What street do you remember?

Sandra McGrath Where did you first go to school in Concord?

John Olsen I went to the Concord Public School.

Sandra McGrath And how long did you live in Concord?

John Olsen About a year and then we went to Bondi.

Sandra McGrath Where did you live in Bondi?

John Olsen Curlewis Street, Bondi.

Sandra McGrath Curlewis Street. And what was the house like there?

John Olsen It was a flat and from my own memory of it, rather dismal and...

Sandra McGrath Would you have been nine now?

John Olsen Yes. And I went to Bondi Public School.

Sandra McGrath And was your father still living in the house?

John Olsen Yes.

Sandra McGrath And what, the atmosphere you described was rather...

John Olsen Well, it's very, very...

Sandra McGrath Was the relationship between your mother and father good?

John Olsen You see he was, no, he was a drunkard and uh gambled, a terrifically heavy gambler.

Sandra McGrath What his, how did this affect his job with the store here?

John Olsen Well, he maintained it for a long period of time. And...

Sandra McGrath Despite being a gambler and a drunk?

John Olsen And um, well it really, really became very bad because he went to the Second World War.

Sandra McGrath In 1941, '42?

John Olsen '39.

Sandra McGrath '39.

John Olsen And then he was away for that period of time.

Sandra McGrath What, five years? Four years, three years?

John Olsen Four.

Sandra McGrath Four. So he was away from you from nine until the time you were 13, is that right?

John Olsen Yes.

Sandra McGrath Basically.

John Olsen Mm.

Sandra McGrath And when he came back, what was the atmosphere? Did he come, were you still in Bondi when he came back from the war?

John Olsen Oh, yes, that's right, yes, yeah. And, oh, it was very, very bad, really.

Sandra McGrath The atmosphere was bad?

John Olsen Well, it was really bad like, you know, every night he'd sort of come home hopelessly drunk and argumentative.

Sandra McGrath He's punched?

John Olsen Or, all was on the edge of the ensuing violence.

Sandra McGrath And when he came back from the war did he still have the job?

John Olsen Yes, he went back, but he was...

Sandra McGrath At Cooee's? Was it called Cooee's in Sydney as well?

John Olsen Cooee.

Sandra McGrath Cooee? Yeah. C, K, what do you spell it?

John Olsen C-O-O hyphen E-E.

Sandra McGrath Cooee. Yeah. And he went back to the same job?

John Olsen Yeah, but he was only there for two years and then he lost because of the the problem.

Sandra McGrath Why do you think he was an alcoholic?

John Olsen Well...

Sandra McGrath Same reason we all are?

John Olsen Have another glass of wine. I don't know.

Sandra McGrath Did you have, what was your sort of feeling about him? Or relationship towards him? Or emotional distance?

John Olsen Well, he had parts of him which I really liked.

Sandra McGrath Which parts?

John Olsen Well, there was a kind of a sort of there was a kind of gentleness in him. But um I've just really sort of grown to dislike him so much, really. And um uh more so now than then. Um

Sandra McGrath Is he still alive? Mm. Is he still with your mother? No, no. They separated since then? Yes, yes.

John Olsen Well, it, you know, it really got so bad, Sandra, that he just slept in cars and was a, you know, a real...

Sandra McGrath Well let's wait till we get to that stage, because at the moment he's still at home. And It was a disturbed... and you're about 13 and he comes back from the war and you and the family is basically disturbed because of his relationship with your mother and your mother's relationship with him, right? Mm.

John Olsen Even though at the time that you don't think about it, but like thinking about it in retrospect, I think that the imminent sense of fear, anxiety and uh you know, not really knowing where you are particularly when you're young you don't even know what you are.

Sandra McGrath True.

John Olsen That it, you know, it it creates an enormous problem, so it's you're not at the point of development to um to cope with it.

Sandra McGrath And your relationship with your mother was it very close, or?

John Olsen Yes, oh she was very good. She's very good. She was a very good mother. And um you know, in those days of marriage that there was no giving in really, unless you had an enormous amount, or you had a lot of money, not an enormous amount, a a reasonable income, because to be divorced was um...

Sandra McGrath Expensive.

John Olsen Yes, and also it it was uh a scandal.

Sandra McGrath And how'd you sum up that sort of we now really got you near your teenager, we've got you sort of teenage period, sort of Tim and Eugenia's age now.

John Olsen Yeah. Thirteen, fourteen. Yeah. Mm. Right? Mm.

Sandra McGrath You must have been pretty aware at this stage of what your life was doing or not doing.

John Olsen Um

Sandra McGrath Do you remember anything?

John Olsen Well, strange enough that um when I think about that, it just makes one in retrospect realise that the artist is is instinctively um born. That um you know, think thinking about my early life, there were no books. There was I've never been into an art gallery even at 14. Um I can remember at school um there was some newspaper prize for um uh a drawing, and I was asked to um, or rather

Sandra McGrath Stop it, James! James! Don't, shut the door if you've got to do that. Shut the door if you've got to do that. It may interfere with my tape machine. Yeah, shut the door. Okay. Shut the door, because it'll just be irritating noise when you listen to it later on.

John Olsen Where were we?

Sandra McGrath We were at uh... We, I asked you to think about that period of sort of we we were saying that Timmy and Jeannie are more or less at the age we're now talking about in your life. How you were sort of, well maybe relating to school. You were you were saying that there was a school a school uh newspaper competition or something which had gone...

John Olsen Oh, yes, that's right. And um when I put my hand up and said that I'd like to enter the competition too, um I can remember this very vividly, the the the teacher said, "Well, it'll be something marvellous that you'll do, Olsen." So, like, he felt um that uh the um there was not much artistic possibility in me. But um always I drew. Uh as far as I can remember, I always did drawings. I always I always spent a lot of time uh drawing.

Sandra McGrath And At school, on your notebook?

John Olsen watercolours No, at home, everything. I always drew.

Sandra McGrath Who provided you with the paper?

John Olsen Oh it was just, look, it was just pieces of exercise books.

Sandra McGrath Just paper and pencil? Mm. Mm.

John Olsen Uh

Sandra McGrath And you didn't see that as any sort of great outlet?

John Olsen No, no, no outlet at all, just uh something that I did, uh you know, something that I liked to do like perhaps I guess old sailors make uh model ships No, I was good in some respects. I was, um, I was very good at English, um, and in fact in the in the in the intermediate certificate, which is a I don't know the equivalent now, that uh I got, you know, very high. Uh I got an A there, and, um, and I got an A in art. And, um, and I did very well in history as well. And hopelessly in maths.

Sandra McGrath So with those good marks, why did they feel that you shouldn't go on? Was that just sort of part of the of the non-intellectual climate?

John Olsen Well, in those days, and I guess it was even the same in America, Sandra, that only those who had money really went to universities. And there was no point in going on if you weren't going to go to university. Like the alternatives now, that's right, the the alternatives now are much broader. Uh the world then was was narrower. And so, and I don't regret it really, um because immediately I left school I began educating myself. Um and quite accidentally, because I'm very happy that I picked up, um, um, I went to, uh, Carl Plate's shop one time, because I began in a shipping office as a clerk.

Sandra McGrath At fourteen you went into a shipping office? Fifteen you went to a shipping office? Tea boy or something?

John Olsen Anything at all, for $3.50 a week, and, um, I went in in in in the Carl Plate shop in the in the in the Notanda Gallery and picked up a a copy of Plato's The Republic, and, uh, I began to read that and I was amazed. I I I liked it, and could understand parts of it. And, uh, and the same thing happened, uh, you know, again with Shakespeare and things like that. And I really thought that, uh...

Sandra McGrath What do you think motivated you to do that?

John Olsen I don't know, that you see, and, uh, as I was saying that, well, why in heaven's name would I pick out a book like that?

Sandra McGrath And there was no mentor, there was no father figure, there was no man...

John Olsen No, no, there was And at that time I hadn't been to art school, which is the next stage. And I just don't really know why. Maybe...

Sandra McGrath Was Carl Plate in that shop?

John Olsen No, no, no. I didn't Carl, of all people, as always... He would not like He'd pay no attention to a 15-year-old schoolboy, you know, Carl, vanity, you know, ad infinitum. And, um, no, I just went in that shop that day. Um you may remember the the Notanda Gallery, which was his shop.

Sandra McGrath How do you spell that? I don't remember it.

John Olsen N-O-T-A-N-D-A.

Sandra McGrath Notanda?

John Olsen And it was in Rowe Street. But it was the place where they had the best prints, the best reproductions and drawings and things like that. Carl used to go away each year. And I guess that's why I found myself in that shop. Um and I still had this urge for drawing and doing things. And not still not being in an art gallery, ever in an art gallery, I thought, well, the only thing that I can do is to be a cartoonist. And I began doing cartoons and things like that, which were published in the Sydney Sun and, um, Man Magazine, um, the overhang of Smith's Weekly.

Sandra McGrath Do you have any Do you have any copies of those now?

John Olsen I think my mother has, yeah.

Sandra McGrath Would you get them for me?

John Olsen Mhm.

Sandra McGrath Um, would you, really? I'm quite serious about that.

John Olsen Yes, yes, I will get them for I'll ask her for them.

Sandra McGrath I mean, just to photostat.

John Olsen Yes. Yeah.

Sandra McGrath What made you think about being a cartoonist?

John Olsen Yeah, well, you see, that was the only thing that was

Sandra McGrath You don't really have any awareness of what you did at all, do you?

John Olsen No.

Sandra McGrath You just did things.

John Olsen Um, well, um, I think the thing is because there weren't any other alternatives, apart from the usual sort of mores of, um, lower-middle-class Australian culture.

Sandra McGrath But when you were in the shipping office as this young boy, you're now 15, probably going on 16 now, did you think, "I think shipping is fascinating, I want to go on a ship"?

John Olsen No, no, no, no.

Sandra McGrath What did you think then?

John Olsen Well, my father said, my mother said that, you know, the best thing to do is to have something secure.

Sandra McGrath And what was going to be secure? You're going to become a shipping clerk? ancestors coming into it.

John Olsen cognizance to really, uh, grasp that. But the fact is, what really happened is that I was in town, and being an errand boy, I was able to go up to the Sydney Sun, which was then in Elizabeth Street, and I sort of met a lot of the, uh, of the people who were, uh, working in the newspaper game. And I, you know, went to see some of the artists there, and they were encouraging about what I was doing, and I really wanted to get a job there, but I couldn't get a job there because at that time I wasn't going to Tech.

Sandra McGrath into the shipping firm rather than, say, um, delicatessen errand boy or anything else? Was it just something you picked up out of the newspaper, or was there some feeling that

John Olsen and as I was describing, Elder Smith.

Sandra McGrath Elder Smith is shipping? I thought they were a wool company.

John Olsen Oh, that they are almost everything. They're wool broking and shipping.

Sandra McGrath But you were in the shipping side of Elder's?

John Olsen And, uh, my job was to take bills of lading down to the Maritime Services Board, as simple as that. And, uh, which gave me a lot of spare time to wander around Sydney.

Sandra McGrath Girls at this stage? No girls? Girls at this stage?

John Olsen Pardon? No, no, no.

Sandra McGrath Sexual awareness not crept into your life at this stage?

John Olsen No.

Sandra McGrath No. Just, well, too busy taking bills of lading down?

John Olsen Just not there. Explains a lot, doesn't it?

Sandra McGrath And what did, uh, your When you went home at night, what was the happen? You're now 14 or 15, your mother and father still living together?

John Olsen No, they'd broken up.

Sandra McGrath What age were you when they broke up?

John Olsen When I was 16.

Sandra McGrath When you were 16. What effect did that have on you?

John Olsen Well, uh, I, uh, I think that I was rather pleased to see the last of him. I mean, you can't imagine, um, Sandra, that every night, this sort of fighting and quarrelling, and the only nights of of reprieve were, um, when he didn't turn up at all.

Sandra McGrath And what what were they fighting about? Do you know?

John Olsen Well, he like there are some people who there was never a central core in in any argument, but just that we weren't all good enough seemed to me to be a a general plank of

Sandra McGrath You mean your father felt that you were all not good enough for him?

John Olsen Yeah.

Sandra McGrath And where were you letting him down? Did anyone ever figure that out?

John Olsen Oh, no, that's logical.

Sandra McGrath But what did he feel? What were his frustrations? I mean now looking at this, uh, from a less childish viewpoint, what do you feel his frustrations were?

John Olsen I really think, um...

Sandra McGrath That's an interesting remark that he didn't feel anyone was good enough, so what, uh, there must have been something in him that was seeking some sort of perfection or difference.

John Olsen No.

Sandra McGrath The way out?

John Olsen The way out.

Sandra McGrath He was seeking a way out.

John Olsen Yeah.

Sandra McGrath So you had really no relationship with your father at all?

John Olsen None at all.

Sandra McGrath And did your sister?

John Olsen No.

Sandra McGrath Did you hate him at this stage?

John Olsen No, uh, I, in actual fact, I I think that I I despise him more now, or have over the last 10 years.

Sandra McGrath Did you find you were tremendously and powerfully drawn to your mother, or that you just thought she was a nice person?

John Olsen No, she she was, uh, you know, a very nice she's a very nice woman, and, uh...

Sandra McGrath What was the effect on her life of this fighting? It was very bad?

John Olsen Very bad, very bad. She had a nervous breakdown.

Sandra McGrath What happened with the nervous breakdown?

John Olsen Well, she

Sandra McGrath Was she hospitalised?

John Olsen Mhm, for a short period only, though. And

Sandra McGrath How old were you when that happened?

John Olsen We went we went out to my grandmother on her side.

Sandra McGrath It was actually very intense then.

John Olsen Yeah, oh, it was. Very, um, very intense. You see, one of the worst aspects of of that kind of thing, Sandra, is that if you're brought up on narrow confines, it's the only world that you know. Uh there's lots of rich people also suffer, from from this kind of thing, as as well as the middle class and the poor. And, even though that you might have, um, you know, the question's been raised before, if Picasso had been born in Bourke, would he have only been the town's best signwriter? Um, I'm sure in Picasso's case the raving genius, uh, would have burst right out of Bourke. Uh, but the thing is, you know, somehow the spirit wants to find the other alternative. The spirit, you see, and like at a certain point, and this is where, like, things, uh, may happen. I was doing these cartoons and they were being published here and there, just like two pounds here, whatever, not very much at all, and I was just, you know, doing things, becoming just a little bit known. And I said to myself, "I'd like to be able to draw better. I'd like to be able to, you know, really sort of draw, you know, to get this thing right. You know, to get a bit more kind of style, to have more alternatives than than I have at the moment." And, uh, that's when I went to art school. This poor dog is terribly pissed off.

Sandra McGrath Now, we must continue with this just briefly because I know it's tiring for you, sweetie. Oh, actually I wanted to ask you immediately, um, the general atmosphere in the home that you're still living in, would you generally describe the whole scene, say, from 7 to 13 or 14, as being unhappy, or just unaware, or tense? How would you describe that rather important period, say, 7 to 14?

John Olsen Well, I think myself that I was unaware. And, um, I think that I was just really, um, apart from, uh, drawing, really just a very ordinary, um, average Australian boy.

Sandra McGrath And you were really basically

John Olsen um, the family background had, uh, provided, and I quite enjoyed it. I wouldn't call it unhappy, even though that, uh, I've underscored this thing with my father, but I but I wouldn't call it, uh, unhappy.

Sandra McGrath Did you see your father after he left?

John Olsen From time to time, yes.

Sandra McGrath What happened when he left Tooheys?

John Olsen Oh, he went to Melbourne for a while, and, uh, more and more, um, in the real alcoholic way, um,

Sandra McGrath He became a bum?

John Olsen Well, you know, there's always, it's not, like, as you can appreciate, Sandra, alcohol, like, really bad alcoholics, it's very difficult to, you know, have a sort of, unless there's a profound love, they're the most difficult people to, you know, tolerate, aren't they? I mean, this is really bad, like, I'm taking Tim to a football match in the Sydney Cricket Ground, and I see him sitting in the gutter, you know, drinking a schooner of beer, and I'm trying to move forward, and Tim says, "Oh, there's Pop." And so we see him, and we take him to a football match, and we're there, and he starts pissing himself. You know, that's really like...

Sandra McGrath What's the word you call it? Unacceptable.

John Olsen Well, it's not particularly... I mean, everything is a well, isn't it? It's a welling of of, you know, feelings of resentments. And I've, like, in the intervening years where he used to call at Watson's, you know.

Sandra McGrath Has it ever occurred to you to sort of try to rehabilitate him?

John Olsen Oh, yes! I've bailed him out many times. From jail, and been through the thing of Salvation Army, and then he went to Callan Park for a while in the repatriation section, which is where they put alcoholics and derelicts. So I've had a long...

Sandra McGrath And you feel no connection with him at all?

John Olsen None at all.

Sandra McGrath But you just...

John Olsen Oh, look, how can I say that when I say it so resentfully? I must have. But I don't want to know about it. I dislike him. You know, I really dislike him intensely. In meaning this, that his whole life, he was a very good-looking man, and his whole life had been a charmed life. Like there'd never been any, on the surface of economic circumstance, ever great difficulty, even down to now time, where he's a sort of total, you know, totally covered by social welfare, army social welfare, which is like, you know, over $100 a week now. Oh, incredible. Jesus, the RSL and that kind of action is unbelievable. To be a TPI, I don't know whether you know that.

Sandra McGrath When he talks to you, is he aware of your sort of, what's happened to you, or is he...

John Olsen No, he doesn't understand it at all.

Sandra McGrath Well, has he ever been to the Opera House and seen the mural, for example?

John Olsen I'm sure he has, but I don't know.

Sandra McGrath He wouldn't admit it to you?

John Olsen No, he's proud of me as being an extension of himself.

Sandra McGrath But not proud enough to shape up.

John Olsen No, no, it's too far gone.

Sandra McGrath How old is he now?

John Olsen Well, he's 71.

Sandra McGrath Oh, he can't go much longer, can he?

John Olsen No.

Sandra McGrath History.

John Olsen Thank God.

Sandra McGrath Will you be glad when he goes?

John Olsen Oh.

Sandra McGrath Will you go to his funeral?

John Olsen It's like nothing. No.

Sandra McGrath You won't go to his funeral? You won't?

John Olsen Oh, bloody well better! I think I'll be dragging him myself.

Sandra McGrath What for?

John Olsen To make sure he goes, Sandra.

Sandra McGrath You wouldn't be here without him. That's one of the basic reasons. Without him you'd be non-existent. A non-being.

John Olsen Great. What a great idea.

Sandra McGrath See, that's too, too much for... I'm being the poor...

John Olsen Well, you've never had that, have you? Mhm?

Sandra McGrath I have not had that, no.

John Olsen No.

Sandra McGrath I haven't had that kind of situation.

John Olsen No. Particularly with a mind like me, where, you know, I have all the feelings like I have. You know, I think it's marvelous for the kids to have, you know, grandparents. It's like the very thing that you're speaking about. It's marvelous for young kids to have antecedents. They think about that more than we do, you know that? Much more than, I mean, the kids are just mad about their grandparents. It's really,

Sandra McGrath Mhm.

John Olsen and they indulge them like hell.

Sandra McGrath Of course it's important. Very important. All right, we've got you up to... Still you're only 15. Still living at home.

John Olsen Yes.

Sandra McGrath When you decided to go to the tech...

John Olsen No sexual experience.

Sandra McGrath No sexual experience. When you decided to go to the tech, was that a confusion?

John Olsen No, I didn't go to tech. I went to Dattilo Rubbo's.

Sandra McGrath That's right.

John Olsen Mhm, which is a marvelous school.

Sandra McGrath Where was that, in Hunter Street?

John Olsen That was then in Hunter Street. Dattilo Rubbo had been a, he was then a very old man, and only came in occasionally, and he had two people working there. One was Vincent Maestri, who was in town, and the other was Frances Ellis. And there I met it. There I saw all the people I'd waited for a lifetime to meet. It was fabulous. Just marvelous. And um, I was still working during the day,

Sandra McGrath You went there at night?

John Olsen and I went there three nights a week, every night that place was open I went there, and sketch clubs in between. And from then onwards, I was a painter. Right from that, there was no question about it.

Sandra McGrath What did you like about the atmosphere?

John Olsen Oh, well, you know, like, for someone who who who'd never known sort of incredible, sort of zany people, I mean the romantic side appealed to me, but also, um, um, in those days in Australia, it was still very, very cut off. I'm talking about 1947.

Sandra McGrath Mhm.

John Olsen And, you know, like Moore, Henry Moore, was considered to be, you know, a modernist monster. The Post-Impressionists were still suspect. There were hardly any good prints at all. It was just, um, you know, it was a very remote place. Not that, not that that mattered to me very much, because what Rubbo's had to offer me, because the whole school was, um, really based on Impressionism, the whole school had a lot to offer me, which was just like drawing and being able to, you know, render things in a tonally Impressionist manner.

Sandra McGrath Did you Did you still like and like nudes and all that?

John Olsen Yes, and antique and everything.

Sandra McGrath Well, from that rather conservative middle-class background, what did you experience when you first saw the nude there?

John Olsen Um, I thought that was a splendid idea! And, and I also read a book which had, which was marvelous too, and again, it's all period piece stuff, but the impact of Joyce Cary's The Horse's Mouth.

Sandra McGrath Did you read that at that time?

John Olsen Yes, at Rubbo's, mhm. And we lived The Horse's Mouth, even down to pinching brushes like Gully Jimson did. You see, that book provided, like I'd arrived at something at Rubbo's, but that book, The Horse's Mouth, provided another substantive culture, another alternative, where the artist as a bum, perhaps, is a hero.