Helge Jon Molvig (27 May 1923 – 15 May 1970) was an Australian

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

artist, considered a major developer of 20th-century Australian expressionism, even though his career 'only' lasted 20 years. He was born in the

Newcastle, New South Wales Newcastle, also commonly referred to as Greater Newcastle ( ; ), is a large Metropolitan area, metropolitan area and the second-most-populous such area of New South Wales, Australia. It includes the cities of City of Newcastle, Newcastle and Ci ...

suburb of Merewether.

Career, influence and reception

Molvig won the

Archibald Prize The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, J. F. Archib ...

in 1966 with a portrait of painter

Charles Blackman Charles Raymond Blackman (12 August 1928 – 20 August 2018) was an Australian painter, noted for the ''Schoolgirl, Avonsleigh'' and ''Alice in Wonderland'' series of the 1950s. He was a member of the Antipodeans, a group of Melbourne painte ...

and portraits of Molvig by artist John Rigby were hung in the Archibald in 1953 and 1959. He won many other prizes including the 1955 and 1956 Lismore Prize, 1961 Transfield Prize (City Industrial), 1963 Perth Prize (The Family), 1965 David Jones Prize (Underarm Still Life), 1966 Corio Prize (The Publican) and 1969 Gold Coast Prize (Tree of Man X). During the late fifties/early sixties Molvig held weekly, very informal, life drawing classes which were central to the Brisbane art scene at the time, and he was mentor to various emerging artists such as John Aland,

Andrew Sibley Andrew John Sibley (9 July 1933 – 3 September 2015) was an English-born Australian artist. Sibley has been the subject of three books and is commonly listed in histories and encyclopedias of Australian art as a significant figurative paint ...

, Gordon Shepherdson, Mervyn Moriarty, Joy Roggenkamp, Hugh Sawrey and many others. Otte van Gilst became a student in 1958, moved in with Molvig in January 1960 and they married in August 1963. Molvig was an accomplished and honest portrait painter - painting fellow artists

, John Rigby, Joy Roggenkamp,

Russell Drysdale Sir George Russell Drysdale (7 February 1912 – 29 June 1981), also known as Tass Drysdale, was an Australian artist. He won the prestigious Wynne Prize for ''Sofala (Drysdale), Sofala'' in 1947, and represented Australia at the Venice Biennal ...

and

Barry Humphries John Barry Humphries (17 February 1934 – 22 April 2023) was an Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist. He was best known for writing and playing his stage and television characters Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. He appeare ...

as well as many privately commissioned portraits, i.e., Paul Beadle, Sir

Charles Moses Sir Charles Alfred Joseph Moses (21 January 19009 February 1988) was a British-born Australian administrator who was general manager of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) from 1935 until 1965. A 1918 graduate of the Royal Military ...

, Sir

Percy Spender Sir Percy Claude Spender (5 October 18973 May 1985) was an Australian politician, diplomat, and judge. He served in the House of Representatives from 1937 to 1951, including as a cabinet minister under Robert Menzies and Arthur Fadden. He was ...

Clem Jones Clem Jones Order of Australia, AO (16 January 191815 December 2007), a surveyor by profession, was the longest serving Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Queensland, representing the Australian Labor Party (Queensland Branch), Labor Party from 1961 to 1975 ...

and Dr. Scougall. His powerful self-portrait is part of the

Queensland Art Gallery The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) is an art museum located in South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA. It complements the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) building, situated only away. The Queensland Art Galle ...

collection. Molvig's art was celebrated at Queensland Art Gallery from September 2019 to February 2020 in the form of a major retrospective exhibition named Maverick

The exhibition opening featured a moving speech by his wife Otte van Gilst who was accompanied by her sons Nick and Alex Bartzis as well as extended family.

Central Australian imagery, symbolism

Molvig's talent came to the fore in 1958/59 when he painted the 'Centralian' series after travelling through central Australia'Artist Roves While Works Are Shown' The Age - Jun 30, 1958, p.5
/ref> - incorporating Australian Aboriginal symbolism in his own interpretation of the Australian landscape. Molvig was an emotional and intuitive painter, deeply concerned with humanity and its follies and always invented symbols and a particular 'style' to suit the criteria of the subject he was painting. This is very evident in his 'Eden Industrial' series 1962 - impressive images of Adam and Eve in an industrialised Garden of Eden, with heavily textured surfaces achieved by burning layers of paint with a blowtorch. Later the 'Pale Nudes' series (1964) once again show the influence Australian Aboriginal art had on him, and this symbolism was further distilled in the 'Tree of Man' series (1968), painted when he was seriously ill and perhaps already had a sense of his own mortality. Molvig was a rare human being - gregarious and straight forward, often too brutally honest for his own good and unable to abide stupidity, but with a gift of true compassion and understanding and gentleness to all living things, including the human race with all its imperfections and this is evident in his work. Molvig died in Princess Alexandra Hospital (Brisbane), Princess Alexandra Hospital,

South Brisbane, Queensland South Brisbane is an inner southern Suburbs and localities (Australia), suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , South Brisbane had a population of 14,292 people. Geography South Brisbane is on the southern bank of th ...

after an unsuccessful kidney transplant.

References

*'Molvig, the lost antipodean' by

Betty Churcher Elizabeth Ann Dewar Churcher (''née'' Cameron; 11 January 193131 March 2015) was an Australian arts administrator, best known as director of the National Gallery of Australia from 1990 to 1997. She was also a painter in her own right e ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Molvig, Jon 1923 births 1970 deaths Archibald Prize winners 20th-century Australian male artists Australian male painters 20th-century Australian painters Australian modern painters