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• Auction House:
  Bonhams Australia
• Sale Name:
  Important Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  25 Nov 2020 ~ 6pm (AEDT)
• Lot #:
  32
• Lot Description:
  Sidney Nolan
  (1917-1992)
  The Circus, 1942
  enamel on canvas
  34.5 x 44.0cm (13 9/16 x 17 5/16in).
  titled and dated centre right: 'THE CIRCUS / 6.11.42'
  REFERENCES: Richard Haese, Rebels and Precursors, The Revolutionary Years of Australian Art, Penguin Books, Melbourne, 1981, p. 194 (illus. in situ); Richard Haese and Jan Minchin, Sidney Nolan: The City and the Plain, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1983, (illus. in situ); Andrew Sayers, Sidney Nolan: The Ned Kelly Story, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1994, p. 16 (illus. in situ); Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan, Sunday's Kitchen: Food and Living at Heide, Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne, 2010, p.128 (illus. in situ); Paula Dredge, Sidney Nolan: The Artist's Materials, Getty Conservation Institute, United States of America, 2019, p. 41 (illus. in situ)
• Provenance:
  Mr John Sinclair, Melbourne; Private collection, Melbourne; Sotheby's, Melbourne, 2 May 2000, lot 296; Private collection, Queensland
• Notes:
  The Circus, 1942, was painted at a pivotal time in Sidney Nolan's early career. The period 1940-43 is of crucial importance to understanding Nolan's entire career. 'The creative outburst of landscape painting that was to occur during Nolan's military service in the Wimmera from mid–1942 to early 1944 was, as art historian Richard Haese describes, 'a unique moment in Australian art - the first significant shift in Australian landscape painting since the years of the Heidelberg school at the end of the 1880s over half a century before'.1 By 1942, Nolan's first marriage to Elizabeth Patterson had disintegrated and he was living at Heide with John and Sunday Reed, whom he would develop an intensely close relationship with and one that would heavily influence the direction of his art. At the time, Heide was a hotbed for creatives of all type, including poet Max Harris, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester and music critic John Sinclair. Later in April, he was conscripted into the army and within weeks he had been posted to Dimboola, where the present work was painted, to safe guard a food store established to supply retreating forces in anticipation of a possible Japanese invasion. 'The mundane, day to day physical routine of army life rested his emotions and mental complexities. He sketched extensively during 1942, producing page after page of vibrantly coloured small drawings in chalk which "does keep me honest, I think and helps bigger paintings when they come" (c. July 1942). By October, based at Dimboola, he had more free time: "Waiting here, walking, doing my share of dreaming and every now and again painting". He read incessantly (Sunday keeping him supplied with parcels of books from Heide): the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke in particular, his beloved Rimbaud and Stephen Spender... This extraordinary range of intellectual interests is paralleled in the subject matter of his paintings at the time: Landscapes – real and imaginary – portraits, local school children, aeroplanes, bathers and so on. "Still a lot of different tracks, too many it feels sometimes" he said, "but they have all got to march together and that's the way it is"2 he wrote on the 6th November 1942, the same day the present work was created. The Circus, 1942 is a playful interpretation on subject matter, its pure abstracted form displays close ties to his Luna Park images, influenced from the 1920s and 30s by the likes of Picasso and Leger and their use of flat planes of colour separated by thick black lines. The circus tent bears a resemblance to his re-occurring motif previously seen in his 'Icare' theatre designs from 1939-40 when he was commissioned by Colonel le Basil and Serge Lifar to design the stage sets for the avante-garde ballet, Icare, based on the Greek mythological story of Icarus. At the time he was persisting with images of St Kilda whilst also navigating his new found landscape as seen in Wimmera, 1942, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, which was painted on the 9th of November 1942, a mere three days after the The Circus. A distinct similarity can be seen in the handling of clouds and abstracted formation. Another work, Going to School, 1942, also in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, finished the following day, shows the remnants of a plane crash from the perspective of a school girl. The Horizon, a mishmash of abstracted debris and clouds also shares similar visions. In a letter to Sunday Reed dated 5 November 1942, Nolan recalled 'I still in those moments bump my head pretty solidly against Picasso, although there is not much trace of it except in the head of say something like 'Going to School'. Still the painting is out and it is that much more tangible to work on. The clearer your head is and workmanlike the better the painting'. 3 Alex Clark 1. Mark Fraser, Making History: Nolan at the Newsagent, exhibition catalogue, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2017, p. 3; 2. Jane Clark, Sidney Nolan: Landscapes and Legends, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1987, p. 42-43; 3. Ibid., p. 45
• Estimate:
  A$40,000 - 50,000
• 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.