Larry Schwartz
TWO almost-empty glasses of Bloody Mary were clearly unwelcome beside a half loaf of bread, butter-smeared knife, bowl of fruit and plate strewn with crumbs and orange peels.
“You better take those away,” Sir Sidney Nolan said. He was not composing a still-life but commenting on an exhibit at the opening of a retrospective display of his works (1937 to 1957) at the National Gallery of Victoria.
Some unthinking guest had left the offending glasses on a table featured in a replica of the Australian artist’s early 1940s studio in the Melbourne suburb of Parkville.
They were quickly removed and a tour of his paintings led by the curator, Ms Jane Clark, proceeded from the recreated studio to the more than 170 works painted by the artist in the past 50 years.
“I’m just glad I’ve survived,” said Sir Sidney, who was wearing a mauve shirt and pink-and-green tie. He seemed a world away from the dishevelled young artist’s abode of his old Parkville studio.
The London-based painter, whose travelling exhibition will be at the Art Gallery of NSW from August 11 to September 27, said that he had definite plans to return to Australia.
“As I get older my feet start to get cold,” he said of the London weather, which he endured partly because of his love of its opera and music.
Commenting on his paintings, he acknowledged that he had made stylistic changes – “a lot briskly and abruptly”. But, he said: “In some curious way they all look like they’ve been done by me”.
He said that he was painting Australian water lilies and immediate projects included World Heritage sights such as the Franklin River and Kakadu National Park.
Sir Sidney’s Landscapes and Legends exhibition features some of his best known works, including many of the famous Ned Kelly paintings.
Also included are paintings of the late 1930s and early 1940s, such as the controversial Boy and the Moon (1940); his first stage designs, created for the ballet Icare (1939 to 1940) and recent works including his Burke and Wills series.
Sir Sidney joked while cutting a belated 70th birthday cake featuring a copy in icing of his 1946 Ned Kelly painting, First Class Marksman.
“You should buy it,” he told gallery officials, “it’s better than the original”.
Larry Schwartz Writer 