Sidney Nolan

Sidney Nolan

  • Biography

    Sir Sidney Nolan AC OM CBE, among the most original and inventive Australian artist of the post-war decades, was one of the few Australian artists to achieve an international reputation in the twentieth century. After becoming associated with the modernist art patrons John and Sunday Reed, he made the complex series of paintings of Ned Kelly for which he is best known at their home Heide between 1945 and 1947. From 1950 Nolan lived abroad, but returned to Australia at regular intervals and continued to explore Australian themes and landscapes. A major retrospective of his work, Sidney Nolan – A New Retrospective, held at the Art Gallery of NSW in 2007, brought together more than 100 of his works.

    Nolan painted a number of self portraits, beginning early in his career. The merged inky blues, pinks and subtle greys of this example are characteristic of the artist's late style. While there is a trace of a satisfied smile, the face is elusive, hazy, veiled, with the head apparently oscillating between profile and three-quarter view. Ultimately, the painting is ambiguous, seeming, like all Nolan's self portraits, to allude simultaneously to his public persona and his internal imagination – to both the mask, and the inner poetry of the artist.

Showing all 18 artworks

Sidney Nolan

Skull,Sword and Flowers ( Robert Lowell ), 1965
30.5 x 25.5 cm Transfer drawing on paper

Sidney Nolan

Kabuki, 1957
30.5 x 25.5 cm Mixed media on paper

Sidney Nolan

Birds and Landscape, c. 1958
30.5 x 25.5 cm Mixed media with crayon rubbing

Sidney Nolan

Verve, 1956
30.5 x 25.5 cm Mixed media on paper

Sidney Nolan

L'Oeil, 1957
30.5 x 25.5 cm Crayon on paper

Sidney Nolan

Landscape, 1942
47.5 x 47.5 cm Oil on plywood

Sidney Nolan

House on Hill, 1942
36 x 45 cm Enamel on canvas sacking

Sidney Nolan

Rollercoaster, Luna Park, St Kilda, 1942
29 x 39 cm Oil on canvas on board

Sidney Nolan

Head of Woman, 1940
50 x 44.5 cm Oil on hessian on board

Sidney Nolan

Woman on Beach, St Kilda, 1940
30 x 38.5 cm Oil on canvas on board

Sidney Nolan

The Studio, 1937
18.5 x 24.5 cm Oil on paper

Sidney Nolan

Elephants and Gazelles, 1963
63 x 51 cm Oil on paper

Sidney Nolan

Ladies with Hats, c. 1961
25.5 x 30.5 cm Fabric dye on card

Sidney Nolan

Kelly Bulldogging, 1955
25.5 x 30.5 cm Mixed media on paper

Sidney Nolan

Monkeys, Africa, c. 1963
63.5 x 52 cm Mixed media on paper

Sidney Nolan

( Ned ) Kelly, 1955
25.5 x 30.5 cm ink on paper

Sidney Nolan

Study for Snake, c. 1972
30 x 25 cm Mixed media on paper

Sidney Nolan

Man In Hat, c. 1955
30 x 24.5 cm Mixed media on paper