Nolan: Origins Looks Beyond The Famous Helmet At AGNSW
More than 150 works at the Art Gallery of NSW trace Sidney Nolan's early years, from wartime landscapes to Australian myths.
The Art Gallery of New South Wales exterior, photographed in April 2013. The gallery is presenting Nolan: Origins.
Sidney Nolan's place in Australian art is often reduced to a black helmet. A new exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales offers a wider view of the experiences that shaped his painting before he left for London in 1953. Nolan: Origins brings together more than 150 works spanning the years from 1939 to that departure.
Curated by the gallery's senior curator of Australian art, Denise Mimmocchi, the exhibition follows Nolan through places including St Kilda and central Australia. ABC Arts reports that the show explores his interest in landscape, identity and the stories Australians tell about themselves, rather than treating his most familiar images in isolation.
One key work is Kiata, painted in 1943 while Nolan was stationed at Nhill during the Second World War. The landscape marks a turning point in his approach to Australian light and space. It also offers a glimpse of forms that would later appear in his better-known work.
For Sydney gallery-goers, the exhibition is a chance to see the early development behind a familiar name. The focus is on how Nolan arrived at his visual language: the places he encountered, the artistic company he kept and the questions he carried into his paintings.
