Sidney Nolan | |
|---|---|
 Sidney Nolan, 1940s, byAlbert Tucker | |
| Born | Sidney Robert Nolan (1917-04-22)22 April 1917 Carlton, Victoria, Australia |
| Died | 28 November 1992(1992-11-28) (aged 75) London, England |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Angry Penguins |
| Patrons | John Reed,Sunday Reed |
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan (22 April 1917 – 28 November 1992) was one of the leading Australian artists of the 20th century. Working in a wide variety of media, his oeuvre is among the most diverse and prolific in all ofmodern art. He is best known for his series of paintings on legends fromAustralian history, most famously that ofNed Kelly, thebushranger andoutlaw. Nolan's stylised depiction ofKelly's armour has become an icon ofAustralian art.
Sidney Nolan was born inCarlton, at that time an innerworking-class suburb ofMelbourne, on 22 April 1917. He was the eldest of four children. His parents, Sidney (atram driver) and Dora, were both fifth generation Australians of Irish descent. Nolan later moved with his family to the bayside suburb ofSt Kilda. He attended the Brighton Road State School and then Brighton Technical School and left school aged 14. He enrolled at thePrahran Technical College (now part ofSwinburne University of Technology), Department of Design and Crafts, in a course which he had already begun part-time by correspondence. In 1933, at the age of 16, he began working for Fayrefield Hats,Abbotsford, producing advertising and display stands with spray paints and dyes for six years. In 1934, he attended night classes sporadically at theNational Gallery of Victoria Art School.[1]
Nolan was a close friend of the arts patronsJohn andSunday Reed, and is regarded as one of the leading figures of the so-called "Heide Circle" that also includedAlbert Tucker,Joy Hester,Arthur Boyd andJohn Perceval. Boyd and Perceval were members of theBoyd artistic family who were centred at "Open Country",Murrumbeena.
In 1938, he met and married his first wife, graphic designer Elizabeth Paterson,[2] with whom he had a daughter, but his marriage soon broke up because of his increasing involvement with the Reeds. He joined theAngry Penguins in the 1940s, after deserting from the army duringWorld War II;[3][4] he was an editor of theAngry Penguins magazine and painted the cover for theErn Malley edition published in June 1944. The Ern Malley hoax poems were seen by Nolan and Sunday Reed as being uncannily prescient in touching on their own personal circumstances.[5][6] The Malley poems remained a real presence to him throughout his life.[7] He painted and drew hundreds of Malley-themed works and in 1975 said it inspired him to paint his first Ned Kelly series: "It made me take the risk of putting against the Australian bush an utterly strange object."[8]
He lived for some time at the Reeds' home, "Heide" outside Melbourne (now theHeide Museum of Modern Art). Here he painted the first of his famous, iconic "Ned Kelly" series, reportedly with input from Sunday Reed. Nolan also conducted an open affair with Sunday Reed but subsequently married John Reed's sister,Cynthia in 1948 after Sunday refused to leave her husband. He had lived in a ménage à trois with the Reeds for several years and after his marriage, he continued to see them and visited Heide at least once during their lifetimes. The years there together have been seen as a dominating factor in the subsequent lives of them all.[9]
In November 1976, Cynthia Nolan ended her life by taking an overdose of sleeping pills in a London hotel.[10] In 1978, Nolan marriedMary Boyd (1926–2016),[11] youngest daughter within theBoyd family and previously married toJohn Perceval.[12]
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Nolan painted a wide range of personal interpretations of historical and legendary figures, including explorersBurke and Wills, andEliza Fraser. With time his paintings of Mrs Fraser came to be associated with his growing animus towards Sunday Reed. However, when first painted he was still on good terms with the Reeds and sent them photos of the works for their approval. Indeed, he gave one Fraser Island painting to Sunday Reed as a Christmas gift that year.[13]
Probably his most famous work is a series of stylised descriptions of thebushrangerNed Kelly in theAustralian bush. Nolan left the famous 1946–47 series of 27 Ned Kellys at "Heide", when he left it in emotionally charged circumstances. Although he once wrote to Sunday Reed to tell her to take what she wanted, he subsequently demanded all his works back. Sunday Reed returned 284 other paintings and drawings to Nolan, but she refused to give up the 25 remaining Kellys, partly because she saw the works as fundamental to the proposed Heide Museum of Modern Art[14] and also, possibly, because she collaborated with Nolan on the paintings.[12] Eventually, she gave them to theNational Gallery of Australia in 1977 and this resolved the dispute. Nolan'sNed Kelly series follows the main sequence of the Kelly story. However, Nolan did not intend the series to be an authentic depiction of these events. Rather, these episodes/series became the setting for the artist's meditations upon universal themes of injustice, love and betrayal. The Kelly saga was also a way for Nolan to paint the Australian landscape in new ways, with the story giving meaning to the place.
Although theDepression and World War II occurred during that period, Nolan decided to concentrate on something other than people struggling in life.[citation needed] Nolan wanted to create and define episodes in Australiannationalism, to retell the story of ahero, who now has become a metaphor for humankind, the fighter, the victim, and the hero, resisting tyranny with a passion for freedom. Nolan recognised that the conceptual image of the black square (Kelly's helmet and armour) had been part of modern art sinceWorld War I. He just placed a pair of eyes in Kelly's helmet, which animates its formal shape. In most of the series, Kelly's steel head-guard dominates the composition. Nolan also concentrates on the Australian outback and shows a different landscape in nearly every painting. The paintings give the audience an insight into the history of Australia but also show others from the world how beautiful Australia is.[citation needed] The intensity of the colours of the land and bush, along with its overall smooth texture, help create harmony between legend, symbol and visual impact.[citation needed] Kelly is in the centre of the painting but the colours around him help make him stand out. It's a very simplistic composition, but highlights that Ned Kelly is an Australian icon.
Nolan never relied upon one style or technique, but rather experimented throughout his lifetime with many different methods of application, and also devised some of his own. Nolan was inspired by children's art and modernist painting of the early 20th century. During this time many younger artists were veering towardsabstraction, but Nolan remained committed to the figurative potential of painting. In terms of art history, Nolan rediscovered the Australian landscape (Australia has not been an easy country to paint).[citation needed] His love ofliterature is seen as visually evident in his work. Other key influences were themodernist artists such asPaul Cézanne,Pablo Picasso,Henri Matisse andHenri Rousseau. Locally, the arrival of the Russian artistDanila Vassilieff inMelbourne in the mid-1930s, with his simple and direct art, was significant for Nolan.
In his series, Kelly is a metaphor for Nolan himself. Nolan, like the bushranger, was a fugitive from the law. In July 1944, facing the possibility that he would be sent toPapua New Guinea on front-line duty, Nolan went absent without leave from the army. He adopted the alias Robin Murray, a name suggested by Sunday Reed, whose affectionate nickname for him was "Robin Redbreast".[16] So when he created the Kelly series, he viewed himself as the misunderstood hero/artist, like the protagonist, Kelly. "Nolan like this Kelly figure has also been a hero, a victim, a man who armoured himself against Australia and who faced it, conquered it, lost it…. ambiguity personified."[17]
Nolan's Ned Kelly series is one of the greatest sequences of Australian paintings of the 20th century. His simplified depiction of Kelly in his armour has become an iconic Australian image. In 1949, when the series was exhibited at theMusée National d'Art Moderne inParis, the museum's directorJean Cassou called the works "a striking contribution to modern art" and that Nolan "creates in us a wonder of something new being born".[18] Works from Nolan's second Kelly series (ca. mid-1950s) were acquired by major international galleries, including theMuseum of Modern Art in New York[19] and theTate Modern in London.[20][21] English criticRobert Melville wrote in 1963 that Nolan's Kelly belonged to "the company of twentieth-century personages which includesPicasso's minotaur,Chirico's mannequins,Ernst's birdmen,Bacon's popes andGiacometti's walking man".
Paintings ofDimboola landscapes by Sidney Nolan, who was stationed in the area while on army duty in World War II, can be found in theNational Gallery of Victoria.
In 1951, Nolan moved to London, England.[22] He travelled in Europe, spending a year in 1956 painting themes based onGreek Mythology while in Greece. In Paris, he studiedengraving andlithography withS. W. Hayter at Studio 17t two years there. He became friends with the poetRobert Lowell and produced illustrations for some of his books. Nolan was a prolific book cover illustrator, his images enhancing the dust jackets of over 70 publications.[23] During this period, Nolan's first London solo exhibition occurred at theWhitechapel Gallery between June and July 1957.[24]
In 1961 Nolan painted a significant series of over 250Auschwitz works, only recently re-discovered, researched and documented by Nolan scholar Andrew Turley.[25] The paintings were Nolan's response to the 1960capture, and subsequenttrial, of NaziAdolf Eichmann when worldwide media attention reignited awareness of the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany during WWII. Nolan subsequently travelled behind the Iron Curtain toAuschwitz on 29 January 1962,[26] at the invitation of Jewish journalistAl Alvarez and Britain’sThe Observer newspaper. He intended to illustrate an article on the concentration camps by Alvarez but was so overwhelmed by the experience he declined to fulfil the commission on his return.[27] The August 2021 exhibition of Holocaust paintings at theSidney Nolan Trust in Presteigne (United Kingdom), was the first time Nolan's long-hidden Auschwitz work was publicly exhibited, and the first time their dramatic story was told in its entirety.[28]
In 1965, Nolan completed a large mural (20m by 3.6 m) depicting the 1854Eureka Stockade, rendered in jewellery enamel on 1.5tonnes of heavy gauge copper. Nolan employed the "finger-and-thumb" drawing technique of Indigenous Australiansandpainters to create the panoramic scene. Commissioned by economistH. C. Coombs, the mural is located at the entrance to theReserve Bank of Australia's Melbourne office onCollins Street.[29]
During the period of 1968–1970, Nolan embarked on the creation of a monumental mural entitledParadise Garden. The project consisted of 1,320 floral designs split into three subsections that were created using crayons and dyes. The intent of the subsections was to show the lifecycles of plants, starting with the primeval plants emerging from the mud, transitioning to their full burst of colour in springtime, and the completion of the life cycle with the withering plants returning to the earth.[30]
In England, Nolan attended theAldeburgh Festival and was encouraged by the organiser and composerBenjamin Britten to show paintings at the festivals. He continued to travel widely in Europe, Africa, China and Australia, and even went toAntarctica.[citation needed]
Nolan died in London on 28 November 1992 at the age of 75, survived by his wife and two children. He was buried in the Eastern part ofHighgate Cemetery, London.
Nolan's lifelong engagement with the theatre began in 1939 when he was commissioned to create décor for French ballet dancerSerge Lifar's revised version ofIcare. Lifar, then on tour in Australia with theOriginal Ballet Russe, offered Nolan the job after a chance encounter with his abstract work.Icare premiered on 16 February 1940 at theTheatre Royal in Sydney.
In 1964,Robert Helpmann enlisted Nolan to design the set and costumes for his balletThe Display. Set at a bush picnic, the piece relates the mating rituals of thelyrebird to the masculine posturing of Australian males. Nolan created a series of green-blue gauze panels to evoke the filtered light of the forest. One contemporary critic remarked that Nolan's décor "not merely recreates the haunt of the lyrebird. It is the deep, rich mysterious gloom of a sunlight-shafted Australian rainforest with the pillars of its ghostly white gums rising through its depths."[31]
In London, he created the designs forKenneth MacMillan'sThe Rite of Spring (1962) atthe Royal Ballet, and for Saint-Saëns'Samson et Dalila (1981) and Mozart'sDie Entführung aus dem Serail (1987), directed byElijah Moshinsky atthe Royal Opera. OnlyThe Rite of Spring remains in the repertory.[32]
In the1963 New Year Honours List, Nolan was appointed CBE. In the1981 Birthday Honours List, Nolan was appointed aKnight Bachelor for service to art, despite his war desertion. He received theOrder of Merit (OM) in 1983. In 1983, Nolan settled inHerefordshire. TheSidney Nolan Trust, chaired byLord Lipsey, was established in 1985 to support artists and musicians, and provide exhibition space for works by Nolan and others atThe Rodd, north ofKington, Herefordshire.[22]
He was made a Companion of theOrder of Australia (AC) in 1988 having declined being made an Officer in 1975. In 1975, Sir John Kerr, the then Governor-General, wrote to the Queen's then Private Secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, to inform him of Nolan's decision to decline. Kerr indicated in his letter that he thought Nolan should have been offered the rank of Companion instead and that he had intended to convey his view to Sir Garfield Barwick, the inaugural Chair of the Order of Australia Council, but that Barwick had already sent Nolan the letter asking whether Barwick would decline the honour of AO. Kerr speculated to Charteris that, having been made CBE in the 1960s, being made an AO, "...may have seemed to him no great advancement."[33]
He was also elected an honorary member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters and a member of theRoyal Academy of Arts.
During theTin Symphony segment of the2000 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, a multitude of performers donned stylised costumes based on Nolan's distinctive Ned Kelly imagery, and a painting from Nolan's original 1946–47 Ned Kelly series was displayed on a giant screen in the stadium.[34]
In 2010,First-class Marksman (1946) became the most expensive Australian painting ever sold. Dubbed "the missing Nolan", the painting was the only one in Nolan's first series of 27 Ned Kelly paintings not in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia. It was purchased by theArt Gallery of New South Wales for $5.4 million.[35]
The cinematography for English film directorNicolas Roeg's 1971 Australian filmWalkabout was heavily influenced by Nolan. The small boy's hallucination of camel riders in the desert was a direct reference to Nolan's Burke and Wills paintings.[36]
Two of Nolan's paintings,The Abandoned Mine (1948)[37] andNed Kelly (1955)[38] were included in Quintessence Editions Ltd.'s 2007 book1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die.[39][40]
Melbourne writerSteven Carroll's 2011 novelSpirit of Progress is inspired byWoman and Tent (1946) by Nolan, who based the painting on Carroll's eccentric great-aunt. The young artist in the novel, Sam, is based on Nolan.[41] Nolan's relationship with Sunday Reed provided the framework forAlex Miller's 2011 novelAutumn Laing.[42][43]
Nolan was to have been the subject of a film titledWhen We Were Modern, directed byPhilippe Mora and starringClayton Watson. In 2013, Mora's filmAbsolutely Modern premiered, with Watson portraying Nolan . Based on 1940s Heide, it concerns Modernism, the female muse and the role of sexuality in Art.[44][45]
David Rainey's 2014 play "The Ménage at Soria Moria" is a fictitious performance piece exploring the relationship between Nolan and the Reeds – both the heady days at Heide during the 1940s, and the less well known degeneration over the next 35 years.[46]
Several documentary films have been made about Nolan.This Dreaming, Spinning Thing was commissioned byABCTV as a companion film to Nolan's 1967 retrospective exhibition at theArt Gallery of New South Wales. It was made with a script by Australian novelistGeorge Johnston.[47]Kelly Country (1972), directed byStuart Cooper with commentary byOrson Welles, explores Australia's landscape and folklore through Nolan's imagery.[48] Nolan'sParadise Garden poems and drawings are examined in British directorJonathan Gili's 1974 film of the same name.[49] A 2009 documentary by filmmakerCatherine Hunter,Mask and Memory charts the course of Nolan's personal life, including his complex relationship with the Reeds at Heide. Narrated byJudy Davis, the film concludes that the three main women in Nolan's life, Sunday Reed, Cynthia Nolan and Mary Nolan, played bigger roles in the development of his art than is often discussed.[50]
Among Australian artists, Nolan's estate was identified as the third largest in Australia in 2013, following those ofBrett Whiteley andRussell Drysdale.[51][52]
1942-44 Conscripted into the Army, stationed in the Wimmera. Went absent without leave in July 1944
Nolan left the Wimmera in 1944, deserting the army for fear of being sent to the war front in New Guinea
Burke provocatively suggests that Sunday collaborated with him on some of his most famous works, the Kelly series among them. "The Kellys are Sunday and Nolan's swansong", Burke writes, "the last brilliant burst of their creative duet." What is most problematic here is that speculation " that Sunday painted the floor tiles and possibly the patchwork quilt in two of Nolan's paintings " is conveyed as fact. Burke's evidence is unconvincing, the main source being a quote from a subsequent letter from John Reed to Nolan, when the friendship between them had soured, that read: "Your paintings were part of your contribution [to Heide], even though you said Sunday painted them as much as you did " you said all your paintings were for Sunday, and I am quite sure you did not think of them otherwise. They were created with her in a sense which is almost literal, and it is certain without her, without your life at Heide, a great many would never have been painted." Surely the description of Sunday's contribution as being "almost literal" runs counter to Burke's argument?
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