SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA.-The Art Gallery of New South Wales presents Sidney Nolan - A New retrospective, on view through February 3, 2008. This is the first major retrospective of Sidney Nolan’s paintings since his death in 1992. It presents an opportunity to unravel something of the artist’s enigma and understand his essential achievement across an entire career.

The breathtaking speed of execution and prolific output of Nolan – estimated to be many thousands of paintings – has always proven a dilemma for the many retrospectives during his lifetime, the last being organised by the National Gallery of Victoria in 1987 for the artist’s 70th birthday.

The exhibition features many of Nolan’s finest masterpieces; some 120 paintings gathered from public and private collections in Australia, London, the United States and France. Many have rarely been seen in public, thus contributing to a fresh experience for a younger generation, and perhaps rediscovery for those who feel they are already familiar with the artist.

‘Painting was the outer skin of Nolan’s thought process, formed with an often disconcerting momentum which revealed flashes of sheer genius. Inventiveness, lyricism and a strong sense of the theatrical; these are the keys to this survey, concentrating on the peaks of excellence.’

-Barry Pearce, curator of the exhibition, 2007

The paintings are displayed in strict chronology, underlining the evolution of Nolan’s vision from its genesis in Melbourne during the late 1930s to the UK half a century later. Each critical phase is represented, from the St Kilda and Wimmera themes, through the first Ned Kelly series, Central and Northern Australian landscapes and explorer subjects, African, Antarctic and European paintings, to Chinese and Australian-inspired abstractions.

Emphasis is given to the late, spray-painted, Chinese landscapes and abstractions, which in some ways are an echo of how Nolan began in the highly charged years of his adolescence. For, beneath the originality of his approach to landscape, nature and history themes over more than 50 years, there was an enduring passion for the purely formal possibilities of painting.

‘... my initial idea as a boy was that abstract painting was the way I wanted to express myself... But with things like Ned Kelly... I saw an opportunity to use my knowledge of abstraction in that cause... The Kelly paintings, really, are as abstract as they are anecdotal.’

- Sidney Nolan

Driven forward at velocity by a powerful instinct, Nolan was aware of the bewilderment felt by critics at his diversity of styles and subject.

It helps to remember in this regard the most consistent influences which inspired him constantly to challenge conventional boundaries and go beyond them: the poets Rimbaud, Blake and Rilke.

His faith in their ideas fed his impulse to travel to all corners of the planet with an insatiable curiosity to discover the extent of the unknown that his painting might encompass.

Some of Nolan’s most famous paintings are included, such as Boy and the moon 1939-40, the iconic Kelly masterpiece First class marksman 1946, Pretty polly mine 1948, Burke and Wills leaving Melbourne 1950, The temptation of St Anthony 1952 and Rimbaud at Harar 1963.

The epicentre of the retrospective however, is the historic conjoining in two semi-circles – echoing Monet’s famous waterlilies murals in Paris – of the multi-panel paintings Riverbend I 1964-65 and Riverbend II 1965-66, where we may become immersed in Nolan’s dreamlike return to the inner landscape of his childhood, made indelible long before he gained a reputation as one of Australia’s greatest artists. Riverbend I and II evoke the place where the artist’s grandfather struggled on the land, and as a policeman pursued the Kelly gang, embedding at once in Nolan’s psyche the refrain of a violent past and a deep love of the Australian bush.

'Although this discovery of truth about Australia is an important element in his work, I think it can be overstated. For Nolan is not at all a factual artist. He is, on the contrary, a man of active and disquieting imagination, and one of the fascinating things about his work is its unpredictability.'

- Kenneth Clark, 1961

A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition. Published by Beagle Press, the catalogue includes a major essay by the curator Barry Pearce and contributions by Edmund Capon, Frances Lindsay and Lou Klepac, with Nolan’s own eloquent words woven throughout.

The Principal Sponsor of this exhibition is Ernst & Young.

‘Ernst & Young is proud to be partnering with the Gallery on the Sidney Nolan retrospective. This exhibition reflects our commitment to the arts, both in Australia and around the world, and to the communities in which we serve. The Art Gallery of New South Wales is to be congratulated on this important and valuable exhibition.’ - James Millar, CEO Australia.