Landscape with Lake Rydal 2001
watercolour, pastel and synthetic polymer paint on paper
signed, dated and titled lower left: John Olsen/ Landscape/ with Lake-Rydal/ 2001
84 x 95cm
Estimate $50,000 - $70,000
The Artist
Private collection, Melbourne
Thence by descent
D. Hart, John Olsen, Craftsman House, 1991, P. 137 (Related work)
RELATED WORK
John Olsen, Landscape with Blackboys, Broome 1999, watercolour on paper, 79 x 90cm, Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 3 May 2023, lot 37
John Olsen's 'Landscape with Lake Rydal' 2001 is an exceptional example of his body of works devoted to the sensory experiences and metaphysical presence of the Australian landscape. Executed in watercolour and mixed media, the work radiates with Olsen's signature interplay of expressive line, colour, and the visceral rhythms of nature. Across his seventy-plus year career, Olsen generated a visual language that uniquely captured the Australian landscape.
In 'Landscape with Lake Rydal', the vast ochres and golds evoke the wide-open plains surrounding Rydal in rural New South Wales, while the painterly arabesques and flecks of pigment suggest a landscape in flux, rippling with life and inscribed with memory.
Reminiscent of Olsen's famous aerial landscapes of Lake Eyre the viewer is invited not merely to see, but to feel the terrain. His landscapes have often been read as environments to wander through rather than vistas to admire.
© John Olsen/Copyright Agency 2026
Fine Art
AUCTION
Sale: LJ8806
6:00pm - 17 March 2026
Hawthorn
VIEWING
Fri 13 - Sun 15 March, 11am - 5pm
2 Oxley Rd, Hawthorn VIC
CONTACT
Wiebke Brix
wiebke.brix@leonardjoel.com.au
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