Sidney Nolan: A Life
Books & Poetry
From St Kilda boy to landed gentry, the life and climbs of Sidney Nolan, hunter of the Australian identity, forager of friends and champions, and perhaps one of art’s most masterful magicians, is laid bare in Nancy Underhill’s latest foray into the complex world of one of Australia’s best known artistes.
Sidney Nolan: A Life by Nancy Underhill, Newsouth, $49.99
If Sidney Nolan was anything, he was highly astute and cleverly deceptive, knowing by instinct precisely when was the time to immerse himself in anything that would ultimately benefit, himself. From his dalliances with literary magazines and literary scandals to his obsession and by rote delivery of literary and artistic classics, Nolan sidestepped and sideswiped a conservative establishment with, or so it would seem, just one aim in mind – to join it. And join it he did, pushing the great Australian landscape and the great Australian mythology not only to the forefront of his work, but into the collected consciousness of a famished worldwide audience.
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While it might be easy to overlook Nolan’s gargantuan influence on Australian art and instead concentrate on what reads as a carefully constructed persona, Underhill manages to illuminate her tome with a certain reverence for the man’s art and for Nolan who, for all his seemingly narcissistic tendencies, managed ultimately to separate himself from his oeuvre and in doing so achieved what few other Australian artists have achieved – namely allowing his art to speak for itself.
In the end however, one is left wondering whether or not we really need to know the ins and outs of an artist’s private life, but in Nolan’s case the life begets the art until the art supersedes the life: A highly informative and closet-opening read for all those interested in the behind the scenes frustration and on canvas action.
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