SOURCE: Purchased The great Australian artist John Olsen died recently. I recalled I have a bookmark featuring John Olsen in my collection and have retrieved it to feature here in my blog as a tribute to him. John Henry Olsen AO OBE (21 January 1928 – 11 April 2023) was an Australian artist and winner of the 2005 Archibald Prize. Olsen's primary subject of work was landscape. The painting on the bookmark is a piece of Olsen's Where the bee sucks, there suck I. (1984-1986), which is exhibited at the National Gallery of Victoria, (NGV), Australia. I did not attend this exhibition in 1991-1992, but I did attend a later John Olsen exhibition in 2017, also hosted by the NGV in Melbourne. Where the bee sucks was one of the paintings exhibited. |
Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.