RADICAL, DRIVEN AND WILDLY SUCCESSFUL, Sir Sidney Nolan did more than anyone else to shake up the conservative art world of post-war Australia. His powerful, child-like images of the Australian Outback, especially those depicting the bushranger Ned Kelly, brought him worldwide fame – and a place in the British establishment.
Despite his modest upbringing – his father was a Melbourne tram driver – Nolan always dreamed of escaping the sterile, conservative mindset of 1950s Australia. As a student he travelled to tropical Queensland and Central Australia at a time when travel within Australia was costly, time-consuming and uncomfortable. Nolan was meticulously recording the stark Outback landscapes and mythic personalities that feature again and again throughout his long and productive career.
But Nolan was not an easy traveller companion. Filmmaker Don Bennetts who accompanied him to Innamincka, a desert settlement, in the 1980s recalls Nolan’s punishing schedule and eccentric fashion sense. Despite the heat and flies the celebrated artist insisted on wearing his English suits from Savile Row. When a sheep farmer offered to lend him a pair of shorts, the artist refused. “A well-tailored suit deserves harsh treatment,” he said.
Sid Nolan by Albert Tucker
By then, of course, Nolan was at the height of his fame and after almost 40 years living in Britain had acquired many of the habits and tastes of an English gentleman – despite his experimental art practice, the Australian-born painter always dressed like a country solicitor. Born in 1917, Nolan was largely self-educated and always saw himself as an outsider, an intellectual fugitive. “I wanted to know the true nature of the ‘otherness’ I had been born into,” he once said. “It was not a European thing.”
Nolan was an astute operator who collected famous people with the same enthusiasm as he collected new stamps in his passport. Early patrons included the composer Benjamin Britten and art historian Lord Kenneth Clark, while the Royal Family acquired several of his early Outback paintings. In 1983 Nolan purchased a magnificent 17th Century manor house, The Rodd, in rural Herefordshire, along with an apartment in Whitehall. His transition from wild colonial boy to landed English gentlemen seemed complete. He was knighted in 1981.
Despite his artistic celebrity and financial success, Nolan kept up a relentless schedule of travel, journeying to every corner of the globe. As a young man he travelled to Greece, Italy, Morocco, the United States and Antarctica. Later journeys took him to China, Tahiti, Brazil, Norway and Zaire. But Nolan did not travel for pleasure and relaxation. “Travel became Nolan’s weapon against creative and personal depression,” wrote one biographer.
As a teenager Nolan had toyed with the idea of becoming a writer and often sought out famous literary figures. I would have particularly enjoyed accompanying him to the Lawrence Ranch in Taos, New Mexico, in 1978. Nolan had a special interest in the peripatetic English writer D.H. Lawrence and his 1923 novel Kangaroo, set in Sydney during the turbulent years after World War 1.
Despite his growing reputation in Europe and America, Nolan continued to draw inspiration from his homeland. During the 1980s he journeyed by off-road vehicle and light aircraft to the remotest parts of the continent. But Australia did not always welcome him with open arms – when Nolan made a pilgrimage to see Xavier Herbert, one of Australia’s most celebrated writers, in far north Queensland, the reclusive novelist refused to see him. It would have been a delicious encounter to witness.
By the time of his death on November 29, 1992 Nolan was a towering figure in both the British and Australian art worlds. His funeral was held at St Martin’s-in-the-Fields in London; he is buried at Highgate Cemetery, the resting place of Karl Marx, George Eliot and Michael Faraday. Rodd Court is today a thriving creative hub and houses Nolan’s last major Outback series. He never painted the rolling green English countryside outside his front door.
Sir Sidney Nolan’s house and studio are open to the public. The property is a short drive from Hereford and offers a wealth of Nolan-related experiences such as tours, open days and workshops. For more information visit The Sidney Nolan Trust website.
Picture credit: National Gallery of Australia and The Sidney Nolan Trust.