Son of the Brush

By Tim Olsen

Book Overview

Tim Olsen, art dealer, is the son of arguably Australia's most famous living painter, John Olsen. Lauded by Sir Alistair McAlpine and Robert Hughes, honored by an OBE, legendary for an epic personality and known as a bravura host of the longest, wildest whiskey- and wine-soaked feasts in local bohemian legend, the father cast a long shadow over the son.

For Tim the only way through has been into the belly of the beast, forging his identity in the very centre of the art world his father dominated and subjecting himself to all of the cliches, excesses and odd adventures of the art dealer as a young man.

Addiction, obsession, controversy, desire, divorce, death, feuds, rivalry, redemption and lunch, always lunch, tell the story of a man attempting a self-made life in a landscape painted long before he was born.

'In this book I wish to reflect, not only on my own experiences in life; the struggles to live life fully and emerge complete from under the shadow of a famous father. I'm proud to call myself (as artist Margaret Olley described herself, 40 years sober) a non-practicing alcoholic. I cherish as a miracle what I was able to achieve having lived in such a contradictory and confused state of mind; a beautiful son, a reconciled relationship with my father, running one of Australia's foremost commercial art galleries and friends that I can rely on.'

This is a memoir that exposes the shenanigans and trickery, the surrealism and turbulence of an upbringing in the magnificent and legendary art world, a world changing with each generation and each show.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1743318057
• ISBN13: 9781743318058
• Release Date: March 2021
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 5.9" x 9.0"