John Armstrong Ogburn (4 June 1925 – 13 January 2010) was an Australian

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

Biography

Born in

St Arnaud, Victoria St Arnaud is a town in the Wimmera region of Victoria, Australia, 244 kilometres north west of the capital Melbourne. It is in the Shire of Northern Grampians local government area. At the , St Arnaud had a population of 2,318. It is named af ...

in 1925, Ogburn worked for Shell Co. in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

as an industrial research chemist between 1944 and 1946. During that time he became what he called a "Sunday painter" in oils and watercolours, and did life drawing at the

Victorian Artists Society The Victorian Artists Society, which can trace its establishment to 1856 in Melbourne, promotes artistic education, art classes and gallery hire exhibition in Australia. It was formed in March 1888 when the Victorian Academy of Arts (previously Vi ...

studio. In 1946 he "realised that the life of an industrial chemist ignored, by-passed, or denied those very things in life most valuable to me", so he bought a scooter and travelled to Northern Queensland, where he worked in the sugarcane fields and on pearling luggers and timber boats off

Cairns Cairns (, ) is a city in Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population in June 2019 was 153,952, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years. The city is the 5th-most-p ...

and

Cooktown Cooktown is a coastal town and locality in the Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. Cooktown is at the mouth of the Endeavour River, on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland where James Cook beached his ship, the Endeavour, for repairs ...

. After returning to

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

in 1948, he worked for the

Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper i ...

as a freelance science correspondent, while studying under the painter

Desiderius Orban Desiderius Orban, (; 26 November 18844 October 1986) was a renowned Hungarian painter, printmaker and teacher, who, after emigrating to Australia in 1939 when in his mid-50s, also made an illustrious career in that country. One of The Eight i ...

and the philosopher Austin Woodbury. Following his first one-man exhibition at the

Macquarie Galleries Macquarie Galleries was a Sydney private art gallery established in 1925 by John Henry Young and Basil Burdett. It was located at "Strathkyle", 19 Bligh Street Sydney then moved to 40 King Street in 1945. From 1991 to 1993 it was located at ...

in 1953, Ogburn sailed to Europe, hitch-hiking, working, and studying in museums and galleries. On returning in 1957, he conducted an art teaching studio in Sydney, and was Vice President of the

Contemporary Art Society (Australia) The Contemporary Art Society is an Australian organisation formed in Victoria 1938 to promote non-representative forms of art. Separate, autonomous branches were formed in each state of the Commonwealth by 1966, although not all of them still ex ...

from 1957 to 1962. In 1963 he opened the John Ogburn Studio of painting and drawing in Lower George Street Sydney, moving to Harrington Street,

The Rocks, New South Wales The Rocks is a suburb, tourist precinct and historic area of Sydney's city centre, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the southern shore of Sydney Harbour, immediately north-west of the Sydney central business district ...

, in 1972. In 1973 he founded the Harrington Street Artists' Co-operative Gallery, where he held a one-man exhibition annually, until his final exhibition in October 2009, a few months before his death. Although not widely known in Australia, John Ogburn received acclaim and admiration from art critics such as

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formal ...

who wrote, "I gathered that he wasn’t widely accepted in Australia – because he wasn’t 'new' enough, 'far out' enough. You Australians may be as benighted as we Americans are."

External links

Obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald

Harrington Street Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ogburn, John Australian painters 1925 births 2010 deaths People from St Arnaud