Nolan, Sidney, 1917-1992

Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, painter, illustrator, printmaker and set designer, was born in Melbourne in 1917. During the 1940s, he was part of the circle of artists that art patrons John and Sunday Reed collected around them at their home, Heide, in Victoria. He was also associated with the Angry Penguins, an artistic and literary avant-garde group. He is perhaps best known for his mythologising of the story of Ned Kelly in a series of paintings created during the 1940s, now in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia. Nolan married three times; his second wife was Cynthia Reed, the sister of his former patron John Reed, and his third wife was Mary Perceval, née Boyd. Nolan was knighted in 1981 and died in 1992.

From the description of Illustrated letter of Sidney Nolan to John Russell, written from Antarctica, 1964 Jan. 28 [manuscript]. [1964] (Libraries Australia). WorldCat record id: 707922812