Book Description

Sidney Nolan (1917--1992) built a compelling narrative around the figure of Ned Kelly, a colorful and wronged anti-hero in homemade armor, and the comic-opera police who pursue him through the vast and featureless Australian bush landscape. The mythologizing of Ned Kelly -- a horsethief hanged in Melbourne in 1880, at age 25 -- did not start with Nolanís paintings, but his images remain the most enduring and instantly recognizable versions. With the stark black silhouette of Ned Kelly, Nolan found his most powerful symbol and poetic metaphor for Australiansí relationship with their land. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A daughter's perspective.
Outback and Beyond: The travels of Sidney and Cynthia Nolan, is five travel books slightly condensed into one. Off the beaten track travels across Australia (1949), New Guinea, Africa, China (1965) and the USA (1958). Wonderful descriptions, commentary and observations by the writer Cynthia with thoughtful and sometimes rye comments quotes from her husband. Kenneth Clark, art historian, remarked that Cynthia Nolan was one the best travel writers of her time. Unfortunately the book is out of print but worth a good search. ... Read more

Book Description

Sidney Nolan, arguably the greatest Australian artist in the Western tradition, is best known for his 1940s and 1950s paintings of Ned Kelly, iconic outlaw of the Australian outback. In these powerful and original paintings the extraordinary Australian landscape itself plays a formidable part. But the Kelly series formed just a fraction of Nolan's prodigious output. He was an impassioned artist who worked until close to his death in 1992, still experimenting, still intellectually curious, still playful. This book, with its wealth of illustrations—270 in color, including five polyptychs on foldouts—is the first to cover Nolan's entire career, from his early paintings to the enormous, multi-paneled works known collectively as Oceania. Some series, like Ned Kelly, center on the heroic and tragic figures of Australian history—the shipwrecked Mrs. Fraser, the explorers Burke and Wills, the soldiers at Gallipoli, the miners of the Eureka Stockade—while others are based on ancient myths such as Leda and the Swan or Oedipus and the Sphinx. Nolan, restless in mind and body, was a constant traveler, and the book reproduces paintings from his journeys in Australia, Europe, the United States, Africa, Antarctica, and Asia. This is also the first book to deal fully with Nolan's multifaceted work as a painter of literary themes, and as a book illustrator, theater designer, and sculptor. 375 illustrations, 270 in color. ... Read more