Sir Sidney Nolan: Night and Desert Landscapes

Sir Sidney Nolan, Night and Desert Landscapes

SIDNEY NOLAN (Australian, 1917-1992) Night Landscape #Year (1950?) Screenprint Edition: 83 of 100 55cm x 68cm Acquired 1982 111924  & 111925

Biography:

Sir Sidney Nolan was one of Australia’s most important modernist artists renowned for his prolific output and compelling interpretations of Australian history and bush life that spanned various subjects and mediums.

Primarily self-taught, Nolan forged his own path in art from a young age. He studied at the National Gallery School in 1934 and 1936 and in 1938 occasionally attended night classes at National Gallery of Victoria’s School of Art. In the same year he began visiting the outer Melbourne farmhouse Heide and became a close and intimate part of patrons John and Sunday Reed’s circle.[1] From 1942 to 1945 Nolan was conscripted into the army but deserted in 1944 and lived in hiding until 1949. It was here he began his now-iconic series focusing on the enigmatic figure of Ned Kelly.

Upon his return to Melbourne Nolan lived with the Reeds at their home, Heide. Heide became a meeting place for modern and experimental artists and the avant-garde group the Angry Penguins, of which Nolan was a member alongside artists such as Arthur Boyd, Albert Tucker and Joy Hester.[2]

In the late 1940s he travelled to Queensland, explored Central Australia, and eventually settled in Sydney. He moved to England in 1951 and was based in London from 1953. He continued to travel widely and spent long periods in Greece and the United States, however Australia remained at the heart of his creative output.

Artwork:

Until his move to England much of Nolan’s work depicted life in St Kilda or his time stationed in the Australian army. Nolan’s experiences in the army (1942-1945) sparked his interest in painting local desolate desert landscapes in a more representational style and the two years he spent in the Victorian country town Dimboola in the early 1940s resulted in his Wimmera series.[3] The image depicted in these prints was created by Nolan in 1950 after his year spent travelling in Central Australia and typically captures the isolation and expanse of the sprawling outback, often unvisited by Australians in the 1950s.

Bibliography:

Hughes, Robert, The Art of Australia, Penguin Books, 1970

Sayers, Andrew, Australian Art, Oxford University Press, 2001

Taylor, E., Australian Art in the Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2016

Underhill, N., Sidney Nolan: A Life, NewSouth Books, 2015

Further reading:

Clark, J., Sidney Nolan: Landscapes and Legends: A Retrospective Exhibition 1937-1987, Cambridge University Press, 1988

Morgan, K. & Harding, L., Modern Love: The Lives of John and Sunday Reed, Melbourne University Publishing, 2015

Smith, G., Sidney Nolan: Desert and Drought, National Gallery of Victoria, 2003

Adams, Brian, Sidney Nolan: Such is Life, Hutchinson of Australia, 1987

View: more works by Sidney Nolan at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, at the Tate, the extensive collection at National Gallery of Australia, and the equally in depth collections at the National Gallery of Victoria and Art Gallery of South Australia.

Learn more: from the Sidney Nolan Trust (UK)