Colin McCahon in Australia

Abstract

This essay, the revised text of a lecture by Rex Butler, provides an intriguing new reading of Colin McCahon and his legacy. Using examples drawn from Australian art and literature, Butler builds a case for the prophetic character of McCahon's painting, exploring how its full meaning is realised not in the artist's life but in his works' afterlife. This not only offers a provocative way of thinking about McCahon's achievement, but also models a different understanding of the work of art as a form of material and spiritual embodiment that lives on and through the work of others.