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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The Barry & Anne Pang Collection
• Sale Date:
  18 Oct 2015 ~ 2.30pm
• Lot #:
  27
• Lot Description:
  Sidney Robert Nolan
  (1917-1992)
  Kelly 1964
  oil on hardboard
  151 x 120.5 cm
  signed and dated lower right: nolan 1964; signed and dated verso: 23 oct 1964 nolan
• Provenance:
  Marlborough Fine Art Ltd, 39 Old Bond Street, London (bears label verso)
• Exhibited:
  Probably Recent Paintings (1964-65) by Sidney Nolan, Albert Hall, Canberra, 26 August - 8 September 1965, cats.17-24 ÔKelly in the Landscape' (Ôeach 5 ft x 4 ft, painted between October 1964 and the end of the year.')
• Notes:
  Sidney Nolan was arguably the most travelled artist in Australian history and his art reflects this. Following a safari to Africa in 1962, he accepted an invitation to travel to Antarctica - its Ôpolar' opposite - in January 1964 in the company of author Alan Moorhead. In its harsh expanses, Nolan found a totally unexpected landscape of Ôblack, ochre, dark green and blue, with an oyster-coloured sky and an indigo sea.'1 One month later, Nolan found himself driving from Sydney to Adelaide in the company of Russell Drysdale and Hal Missingham, a trip that afforded him the opportunity to re-visit the Wimmera, Dimboola and other sites he had painted whilst in the army in the early 1940s. Described as Ôa memorable journey with frequent stops at pubs along the way,'2 it led Nolan to observe that '(w)hen I travelled across Australia with Drysdale, I was fascinated by the truly Australian faces. I found myself looking at them for the first time and I wanted to paint them not masked as I had painted Ned Kelly.'3 This is a fascinating observation and gives a clue to his concentrated re-encounter with the story. Ned Kelly's story remains as vivid and controversial today as it has been at any time since the original Ôoutbreak' in 1878. Alan Moorhead described him Ôas a brave and unrepentant misfit, as the avenger of injustice, as one man defying destiny, as the personification of the poet's idea that an hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name.'4 Nolan's first series of Kelly paintings from 1945-1947 were folkloric in nature, described memorably by the artist as being painted in a combination of ÔRousseau and sunlight'. When Nolan stormed out of Heide in 1947, he left this suite in the hands of Sunday and John Reed, who finally arranged for an exhibition of them in London in June 1964, thus affording the artist his first real analysis of them in almost two decades. Local critics were positive in their commentary with one describing them as possessing Ôan intensity and purity that seize you by the throat.'5 They also galvanized Nolan to re-engage with the story drawing on all he had absorbed via travel and experience in the interceding years. There are some 30 large Kelly paintings dating from August - December 1964 and happily, Nolan dated most to the day. He also painted concurrent images of Antarctica and Burke & Wills, and examination reveals traces of one painting leading into another before inspiring a further element in a third. On 20 October, Kelly's helmet is all that appears, slumped wearily to one side amidst agitated paint. On 23 October (in a work painted the same day as this lot), his helmet appears defiantly raised above a ridge but is blurred at the edges as if about to dissipate in a willy-willy. In this particular Kelly, a trooper skittles on his horse as if avoiding a rifle shot, whilst a huge Kelly figure dominates the foreground. Technically, Nolan has employed brush and fingers to apply the paint, scraping back where necessary, until Kelly has become submerged within the landscape, a potent suggestion of his ultimate fate. 1 Sidney Nolan, 1965, quoted in: ÔAs Sidney Nolan Sees Antarctic,' The Australian Women's Weekly, Sydney, 15 September 1965, p.10 2 Lou Klepac, The Life and Work of Russell Drysdale, Bay Books, Sydney, 1983 (2009 edition) p.319 3 Sidney Nolan, 1965, cited in: Nancy Underhill (ed.), Nolan on Nolan: Sidney Nolan in his own words, Viking, Victoria, 2007, p.291 4 Alan Moorehead, ÔArtist from the outback,' Horizon, vol.5, no.1, New York, September 1962, p.100 5 Richard Walter, Ô25 paintings that seize you by the throat', Daily Mail, London, 1 July 1964
• Estimate:
  A$500,000 - 700,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.