Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly Series Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly Series

From 1946-47, Australian artist Sidney Nolan painted a series of 27 paintings of the nineteenth-century bushranger Ned Kelly.

The original and starkly simplified image of Ned Kelly became a national symbol - part of the shared iconography of Australia, seen as one of the greatest sequences of Australian paintings of the 20th century.

The series was painted while Nolan was living with Sunday and John Reed at their homestead, Heide, in Heidelberg, Victoria. In 1977, Sunday Reed donated 25 of the 27 paintings to the National Gallery of Australia.

Ned Kelly Series

Sidney Nolan happened to be close friends with John and Sunday Reed - two big supporters of Australian art.

They owned a place called Heide, an old dairy farm they bought in 1934, which soon became a creative hub for artists. It wasn't long before some of Australia's top modernist painters, like Albert Tucker, Joy Hester, Danila Vassilieff, and Nolan himself, were living and working there. The group became known as the "Heide Circle," and their personal and professional lives often overlapped in interesting ways.

Nolan became so involved at Heide that it eventually led to the end of his marriage to Elizabeth, whom he'd married in 1938. He threw himself into his art and lived at Heide for years. It was there, in 1946, that he started his iconic Ned Kelly series - 27 paintings that would become some of his most famous work.

During this time, Nolan was in a relationship with Sunday Reed, and she even claimed to have helped paint some of the Ned Kelly works. Things got more tangled when Nolan married John Reed's sister, Cynthia, in 1948 after Sunday chose to stay with John. After that, Nolan left Heide, but he stayed on good terms with the Reeds and often sent them pictures of his work.

When he moved out, Nolan left his Ned Kelly paintings behind. He later asked Sunday to return them, but instead, she sent back hundreds of his other works and kept the Kelly series. She believed the paintings were essential to what would eventually become the Heide Museum of Modern Art. It wasn't until 1977 that she gave the series away-not to Nolan, but to the National Gallery of Australia.

The Ned Kelly paintings tell the story of the famous bushranger, though Nolan didn't try to make them historically accurate. Instead, he used the story to explore big ideas like injustice, love, and betrayal. His version of Kelly-with a boxy helmet and just a pair of eyes peeking through-became a powerful symbol, set against striking Australian landscapes.

Nolan's bold use of color and simple, flat shapes give the series a unique energy. He didn't stick to one style, drawing inspiration from kids' drawings and early 20th-century modern art. The result is a vivid, playful yet serious body of work.

The Ned Kelly story also had personal meaning for Nolan. During World War II, he went AWOL to avoid being sent to Papua New Guinea, and lived under the alias "Robin Murray"-a name suggested by Sunday Reed. In a way, Nolan saw himself in Kelly: misunderstood, rebellious, and on the run.

Today, the Ned Kelly series is considered one of the most important groups of Australian paintings from the 20th century. Nolan's image of Kelly in his helmet has become iconic, and his landscapes helped many rediscover the beauty of the Australian outback. While the series was always admired in Australia, it was a 1949 exhibition in Paris that confirmed its place in modern art history. The museum director called it "a striking contribution to modern art" and praised Nolan for creating "a wonder of something new being born."

Based on source: artsandculture.google.com

The National Gallery of Australia acquired its first Ned Kelly work from the series in 1972, Death of Sergeant Kennedy at Stringybark Creek 1946. In 1977, Sunday Reed donated to the NGA 25 of the 27 paintings from Nolan's first exhibited Kelly series.

Together, these 26 paintings provide a masterclass on Australian art history and the development of a new figuration and landscape painting in Australian art.

In 2019, the National Gallery of Australia's collection of Sidney Nolan's 'Ned Kelly'' paintings toured Australia in its entirety. The national tour gave Australians the chance to experience some of the most famous and poignant masterpieces of 20th century Australian art.

While the Kelly paintings have been exhibited internationally at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, they have rarely visited the far corners of Australia. 
➼ nga.gov.au

➼ nga.gov.au

➼ www.sidneynolantrust.org

➼ artsandculture.google.com

➼ www.onlycanberra.com.au

❊ Also See... ❊

➼ Heide | Museum of Modern Art

➼ Ned Kelly | Bushranger




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