Nancy Underhill - Sidney Nolan: A Life

SIDNEY NOLAN

NANCY UNDERHILL is an author, curator and art historian. Educated at Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and the Courtauld Institute in London, she was Foundation Head of the Department of Art History at the University of Queensland, and the inaugural director of the University Art Museum. Her books include Nolan on Nolan: Sidney Nolan in his own words (2007), Letters of John Reed (co-editor, 2001) and Making Australian Art 191649 (1991). Nancy has served on the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council, and chaired the Art Association of Australia and the Museums Association of Australia. She has been a visiting fellow at the Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, and a research associate at the Menzies Centre of Australian Studies, Kings College, London.

A NewSouth book

Published by

NewSouth Publishing

University of New South Wales Press Ltd

University of New South Wales

Sydney NSW 2052

AUSTRALIA

newsouthpublishing.com

Nancy Underhill 2015

First published 2015

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

National Library of Australia

Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Creator: Underhill, Nancy, author.

Title: Sidney Nolan: a life / Nancy Underhill.

ISBN: 9781921410888 (hardback)

9781742241920 (ePub/Kindle)

9781742247199 (ePDF)

Notes: Includes index.

Subjects: Nolan, Sidney, Sir, 19171992.

Painters Australia 20th century Biography.

Dewey Number: 759.994

Design Di Quick

Cover design Sandy Cull, gogoGingko

Cover image Sidney Nolan, Self-Portrait, 1943. Sidney

Nolan Trust/Bridgeman Images.

All reasonable efforts were taken to obtain permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book, but in some cases copyright could not be traced. The author welcomes information in this regard.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

For John, Kenneth, Zoe, Georgia and Thomas Underhill

In memory of my husband Peter Underhill

With gratitude to
Lisa, Barry, Eve and Henry Johnson
Lesley Harding, Kendrah Morgan

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

From NewSouth Publishing
Phillipa McGuinness, Emma Driver, Calleen Hominh, Bryony Cosgrove, Alan Walker

Art Gallery of New South Wales (librarians, curators and conservation staff)

Australian War Memorial

Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears Trust

Bundanon Trust

Cable Beach Resort, Broome

Fryer Library, University of Queensland

Latrobe Library, State Library of Victoria

Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

National Gallery of Australia (librarians, curators and conservation staff) State Library of Queensland (librarians and conservation staff)

Seymour Historical Society

Shepparton Historical Society

Victorian Police Museum and Archive

The Whitechapel Gallery

Tate Britain

Leon Bannister, Lorna Nolan Goslin, Joan Bannister Jones, Jinx Nolan, Mary Nolan

Brian Adams, Phillip Adams, Dawn Ades, Julian Agnew, Brit Andresen, Mary Andrews, Philip Bacon, Sally Begbie, Don Bennetts, Mark Bracegirdle, John Buckley, Judith Buckrich, Darleen Bungey, Rod Campbell, Edmund Campion, Edmund Capon, David Chalker, Kate Challis, Betty Churcher, Helen Davey, Terry Danziger-Miles, Desmond Digby, Paula Dredge, Joanna Drew, Jane England, Klaus and Julie Friedeberger, Ann Galbally, Angela Goddard, John Golding, Grey Gowrie, Jos Hackforth-Jones, Lesley Harding, Samela Harris, Elizabeth Harrower, Deborah Hart, Michael Heyward, Frances Henke, John Hull, Catherine Hunter, Rodney James, Brian Johns, Peter Jones, Peter Kennedy, Michael Keon, Al Laczoffy, Frances Lindsay, Elwyn, Lily and Victoria Lynn, Jean MacCausland, John McDonald, David Malouf, Jenny Manton, David Marr, Alistair and Athena McAlpine, Thomas Middlehouse, Steven Miller, Richard Mills, Nick Mitzevich, Kendrah Morgan, John Olsen, Charles Osborne, Barry Pearce, Simon Pierce, Anthony Plant, Margaret Plant, Jocelyn Plate, Peter Porter, Roslyn Poignant, Stuart Purves, David Rainey, Warwick Reader, Barrett Reid, Bryan Robertson, Robyn Sloggett, Leslie van der Sluys, Bernard Smith, Fern Smith, Betty Snowden, Jason Sprague, Ken Thomson, Ian Topliss, Albert and Barbara Tucker, Brian Urquhart, Gerald Wakelin, Pamela Warrender, Kay Whitney, Tony Willsallen, Lola Wilkinson, Natalie Wilson, John Yule, Patsy Zeppel

INTRODUCTION

WHY ANOTHER BOOK about Sidney Nolan? That was my immediate response when NewSouth Publishing suggested I write one. The invitation was prompted by my co-editing of The Letters of John Reed (2001) and my more recent publication, Nolan on Nolan (2007). I said I would think it over during a forthcoming London holiday.

In the UK, my art and publishing world friends had a single response: Of course you must. Nolan remains a topic of interest for any evaluation of late-twentieth century British art. Yet despite Nolan basing himself in the UK from 1953 until his death in 1992, the main Nolan references, aside from commercial exhibition catalogues, remain the 1957 catalogue for his retrospective at Londons Whitechapel Gallery and the 1961 Thames & Hudson monograph Sidney Nolan. My friends were interested to know how Nolans carefully nurtured fame had affected reactions to his later works. Some also wondered what Australians thought of Nolans depictions of so-called true Australia.

In Australia, the public still tends to truncate Nolans life at July 1947, when he quit living with John and Sunday Reed at their home, Heide, outside Melbourne. Like Sunday, the public locks Nolans fame onto the group of Ned Kelly paintings he left with her. Once she gave them to the National Gallery of Australia, those paintings became her very public memorial to lost love, and supported the Reeds claim to have nurtured Nolans genius. He became simply the man who painted Kelly.

Nolan deserves a more broad-reaching critical biography, informed by art historical assessments. Questions and issues began to bubble in my mind. I had met Nolan several times, once at a long evening meal which included his friend the painter and curator Elwyn Lynn, the dealer Rudy Komon and Nolans wife, Mary. Aside from food, the conversation centred on the British art world and Nolans and Lynns interest in texts by Patrick White and Robert Lowell. Other meetings concerned his early 1940s slate paintings because, rather out of the blue, Nolan offered them to me as Director of the University Art Museum at the University of Queensland, provided I raise the necessary moneya challenge I accepted with some fear. Some months later, Lynn let me know Nolan had decided not to bother about more money and simply waived about $10,000 outright. I also saw Nolan in London, where discussion addressed his design for The Rite of Spring versus his later design for Il Trovatore in Sydney. When asked about a Nolan biography by NewSouth Publishing I had already researched the Reed Papers, held in the State Library of Victoria, and Nolans own archive, at his home, The Rodd, on the Welsh border. Finally, I knew or could arrange to meet his associates in Australia and the UK. On that basis, I agreed to undertake what has proved to be a very complex and intriguing journey.