By Dr. Emese Revesz on the occasion of the John Ogburn exhibition at Sziget Galeria, Budapest 2001.
Translated by Paul Desney 2012
John Ogburn and Henri Matisse
Respect for the substantial world, the true maintenance of the natural appearance as starting point, simultaneously the demand for freedom of personal interpretation are common features of Orban and Ogburn’s painterly way of seeing. His decorative form-making, liberated colour- world, however draws nourishment not from Orban’s rigorously structured apparent world, but rather from Matisse’s painting. Ogburn encountered his first taste of Matisse’s painting in the course of his travels between 1953 and 1957, when touring over four years the major cities of the United States and Europe, during which he gained from the exhibited material of the museums and galleries wide-ranging acquaintance with the classic artists of modern art and the most recent artistic tendencies. Ogburn in these years was still working in the style of abstract expressionism which Abstract composition of 1961 held in the Zador collection also confirms. Only at the end of
the sixties does the figure once again get a central role in his painting. In his figurative compositions of the seventies years Ogburn in an individual manner utilises the lessons from Matisse’s painting: subtle colour– fields get a central role, which elegant contours gather into decorative unity. Not only his painterly resources, but choice of subject also stands close to the great French painter’s art, as indeed Ogburn too in the first place draws his motifs from the immediate subject – matter of his close environment. The still life gets a largerole in his painting, which as one of the types of painting least burdened with content is the most suitable for the solution of purely painterly problems. One of Ogburn’s early comprehensive works, the Interior with easel in its spatial perception and method of seeing is a close relative of Matisse’s studio series completed in 1911 (Pink studio, Puskin Museum, Moscow; Red studio, New York, Museum of Modern Art). Ogburn’s expressive realism, draughtsmanship of his pictures, intentional naivety, mood of his pure complementary colour contrasts evocative of children’s’ drawings , bright objectivism is a refreshing presence in the conceptualist current of the seventies’ years. Besides the still lives and interiors the nude is his other pictorial subject. His rich sensual female
figures are the descendants of Matisse’s Odalisque-cycle of Nice painted in the 1920s years. Ogburn though is not a simple Matisse-follower, because his connection with the French painter is not merely formal, but substantial. Matisse’s virtuosic handling of form, colour – sensibility indeed is not imitable and not learnable, only a related world-view can create anew the energy and harmony of similar pictorial equilibrium. The appeal of Ogburn’s paintings originates indeed from that the very joy of life and enjoyment of the material world radiate a view of life, related to Matisse’s, his art indeed from this gaining its energy and dynamism and transmuting into instinctive joy in painting.
When Clement Greenberg, one of the most influential critics of post 1945 modern painting, most renowned supporter of abstract expressionism and Jackson Pollock visited John Ogburn’s Sydney studio he declared appreciatively on the Australian painter’s works, emphasising his bold, but fine draughtsmanship, the colouristic richness of his pictures. Some few years later, in his lines written in 1985 Greenberg too drew attention to the relationship between Ogburn and Matisse: "Sure he owes a lot to Matisse…I venture to say that a superior painter nowadays has to owe something to Matisse, but he hasn’t regurgitated him in his own art. He hasn’t succumbed to him."
Translated by Paul Desney 2012
John Ogburn and Henri Matisse
Respect for the substantial world, the true maintenance of the natural appearance as starting point, simultaneously the demand for freedom of personal interpretation are common features of Orban and Ogburn’s painterly way of seeing. His decorative form-making, liberated colour- world, however draws nourishment not from Orban’s rigorously structured apparent world, but rather from Matisse’s painting. Ogburn encountered his first taste of Matisse’s painting in the course of his travels between 1953 and 1957, when touring over four years the major cities of the United States and Europe, during which he gained from the exhibited material of the museums and galleries wide-ranging acquaintance with the classic artists of modern art and the most recent artistic tendencies. Ogburn in these years was still working in the style of abstract expressionism which Abstract composition of 1961 held in the Zador collection also confirms. Only at the end of
the sixties does the figure once again get a central role in his painting. In his figurative compositions of the seventies years Ogburn in an individual manner utilises the lessons from Matisse’s painting: subtle colour– fields get a central role, which elegant contours gather into decorative unity. Not only his painterly resources, but choice of subject also stands close to the great French painter’s art, as indeed Ogburn too in the first place draws his motifs from the immediate subject – matter of his close environment. The still life gets a largerole in his painting, which as one of the types of painting least burdened with content is the most suitable for the solution of purely painterly problems. One of Ogburn’s early comprehensive works, the Interior with easel in its spatial perception and method of seeing is a close relative of Matisse’s studio series completed in 1911 (Pink studio, Puskin Museum, Moscow; Red studio, New York, Museum of Modern Art). Ogburn’s expressive realism, draughtsmanship of his pictures, intentional naivety, mood of his pure complementary colour contrasts evocative of children’s’ drawings , bright objectivism is a refreshing presence in the conceptualist current of the seventies’ years. Besides the still lives and interiors the nude is his other pictorial subject. His rich sensual female
figures are the descendants of Matisse’s Odalisque-cycle of Nice painted in the 1920s years. Ogburn though is not a simple Matisse-follower, because his connection with the French painter is not merely formal, but substantial. Matisse’s virtuosic handling of form, colour – sensibility indeed is not imitable and not learnable, only a related world-view can create anew the energy and harmony of similar pictorial equilibrium. The appeal of Ogburn’s paintings originates indeed from that the very joy of life and enjoyment of the material world radiate a view of life, related to Matisse’s, his art indeed from this gaining its energy and dynamism and transmuting into instinctive joy in painting.
When Clement Greenberg, one of the most influential critics of post 1945 modern painting, most renowned supporter of abstract expressionism and Jackson Pollock visited John Ogburn’s Sydney studio he declared appreciatively on the Australian painter’s works, emphasising his bold, but fine draughtsmanship, the colouristic richness of his pictures. Some few years later, in his lines written in 1985 Greenberg too drew attention to the relationship between Ogburn and Matisse: "Sure he owes a lot to Matisse…I venture to say that a superior painter nowadays has to owe something to Matisse, but he hasn’t regurgitated him in his own art. He hasn’t succumbed to him."