For more than half a century, famed Australian painter, the late John Olsen AO OBE, made an enormous contribution to Australian art. In an obituary written by Dr Deborah Hart of the National Gallery of Australia, she says ‘his greatest achievement has been the way in which he transformed our conception of the environment with great vitality and insight.
‘In impressive large-scale paintings like Sydney Sun 1965 and Five Bells 1963 (now in the National Gallery of Australia and Art Gallery of New South Wales collections, respectively), he conveyed the interconnectedness between natural phenomena such as light and water and all living beings.’
It was therefore with surprise and enormous gratitude that we received a letter in 2009 from John Olsen himself, who had an opportunity to see the prints in the Cycling History Collection. It was in the early period when we were still deciding how best to reproduce these amazing images. The work was being done by our friends at Digital Art Directory, niche specialists in art digitisation, who also reproduce the fabulous art of John Olsen, Jeffrey Smart and other globally recognised Australian artists under license.
While our research still hadn’t unearthed the fact that the images were from the 1930 Tour, and not the 1929 Tour as John indicates in his letter, the impact for the artist famed for bringing life to Australian landscapes was clear.
In his letter he says:
‘Dear Stephen,
what a thrill
the photographs are – ’29
the year of my birth – seeing them
has made my day!
Sincerely, John’
It made our day getting your letter too!
