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 almost up to his death in 1992, still experimenting, still intellectually curious, still playful.
This book, with its illustrations – 270 in full 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 major 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 – and others center on such ancient myths as Leda and the Swan or Oedipus and the Sphinx. pp. 304 Illusts #1118/0819 (Gift inscription on half-title; possibly related name. Indentation / scratch to dustjacket.)