SIDNEY NOLAN RETROSPECTIVE

The Sidney Nolan retrospective starts in a few days at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Much of the focus on Nolan in recent news articles has been on how his work divides art lovers. Sebastian Smee wrote an interesting article in The Australian where he compared Fred Williams and Nolan. Smee seemed ultimately to favour Williams but saw Nolan as just too strong a painter in his best works to ignore. In the selection for the retrospective Barry Pearce has taken a different approach than might be expected. For example not all of the first Ned Kelly series will be exhibited and there seems to be a focus on Nolan’s interaction with the poet Rimbaud. I’m looking forward to posting my own review of the exhibition shortly!