Description:

A LARGE DINNER SERVICE FROM THE 'TERRY WHELAN SUITE' DECORATED BY JOHN OLSEN
1970–1971, potted by Robert Mair (b. 1943), decorated by John Olsen (1928–2023)

Stoneware, seventy-eight pieces comprising fourteen each of dinner plates, entrée / dessert plates, cereal / fruit bowls, and goblets, fifteen handled ramekins with covers, thirteen side plates, two large covered serving dishes, and two small pitchers of different sizes, all decorated by Olsen with various freely-drawn motifs and geometric and abstract organic designs in cobalt blue on the speckled pale grey-white ground, many also with details in brown, the well of each plate with initials TW decoratively drawn to the centre, all with Mair's impressed mark, all variously signed underside by Olsen in full or with initials and dated 1970 and 1971, the larger pieces also inscribed 'Terry Whelan suite'
The larger covered dish 14cm high, 30cm wide; the dinner plates 27cm diameter; the goblets 20cm high (some variations between pieces)

PROVENANCE:
Terrence (Terry) Whelan (1943–2024), Melbourne, commissioned from John Olsen and Robert Mair, 1970
The Estate of Terrence (Terry) Whelan

EXHIBITIONS:
John Olsen: The You Beaut Country, NGV Australia, Melbourne, 16 September, 2016–12 February, 2017

LITERATURE:
Matthew Martin, 'John Olsen's Whelan Suite' in D. Hurlston and D. Edwards (eds), John Olsen: The You Beaut Country (2016)
Tom Olsen, Son of the Brush (2020), pp 41–42


OTHER NOTES:
In 1969, John Olsen moved from Sydney to the artists' community established on Clifton Pugh's property, 'Dunmoochin' at Cottles Bridge outside Melbourne. The move and his response to the landscape around him prompted various new directions in Olsen's art and creativity generally, including an interest in working with ceramics, sparked by his exposure to the potters resident at Dunmoochin.

Olsen worked collaboratively with several of these potters, decorating their wares, most closely with the New Zealand potter, Robert Mair, combining his own artist motives with what he learned from Mair and others about ceramic-decorating traditions, particularly Asian techniques and styles, an influence to which Olsen was already drawn.

In 1970, a large paella serving bowl made and decorated by Mair and Olsen (lot 64 in this auction) was acquired by Terry Whelan on a visit to Dunmoochin, soon prompting Whelan to commission a large dinner and coffee service in the same manner – the 'Terry Whelan suite'.

Olsen's notes made at the time indicate the degree to which production of the Whelan suite became an intense combination of artistic techniques and interests – the technical challenges of producing such a large service with some consistency and not too many losses together with the intermingled invigorating passions and artistic interests of the artists and patron.

As noted by Matthew Martin in his essay on the suite in D. Hurlston and D. Edwards (eds), John Olsen: The You Beaut Country (2016), accompanying the National Gallery of Victoria's exhibition of the same title in which the suite was included, Olsen's decoration of the suite incorporates various motifs relating to the Whelan family, including cross and clover leaves harking to family's Catholic Irish roots, and others hinting at Terry Whelan's own personal interests.

© John Olsen/Copyright Agency, 2024

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November 25, 2024 6:00 PM AEDT
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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
A$0 A$99 A$50
A$100 A$499 A$50
A$500 A$999 A$50
A$1,000 A$1,999 A$100
A$2,000 A$4,999 A$200
A$5,000 A$9,999 A$500
A$10,000 A$19,999 A$1,000
A$20,000 A$49,999 A$2,000
A$50,000 A$99,999 A$5,000
A$100,000 + A$10,000