During World War II, Nolan’s landscape paintings, often rendered in enamel, captured the austere beauty of the Wimmera — its emptiness and heat marking his earliest breakthrough. In 1946 he began his iconic Ned Kelly series: stark, helmeted silhouettes set against incandescent bushland. These enigmatic figures, painted in enamel with immediacy and insight, fused personal emotion with national myth. Nolan described them as an ‘inner history of my own emotions’.
Nolan’s career expanded through experimentation — he produced book covers, photographs, large murals (including a monumental jewellery enamel mural, Eureka Stockade), tapestries, landscapes and abstract works born from his extensive travels across Europe and beyond. Honoured with a knighthood in 1981, Nolan spent his later years between London and the Welsh borders. He died in London in 1992, leaving a legacy that remains foundational to Australia’s notion of its own visual culture.
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Gully (Ned Kelly)
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Sketch for Ned Kelly
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Departing from Melbourne (Burke and Wills Expedition)
SIR SIDNEY ROBERT NOLAN, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Explorers (Antarctica)
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
African Landscape
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Bird in landscape
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Antarctic Explorers
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Man and Monkey
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Burke and camels
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
A green card folder titled 'Kelly' on the upper cover containing 113 sketches and notes for Ned Kelly, approximately 28 relating to sets, props and dramatis personae for Douglas Stewart's Ned Kelly , Italy, 1956
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Kelly, 1961
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A (1917-1992)
Kelly on horseback
SIR SIDNEY ROBERT NOLAN, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Kelly in a landscape
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Aunt's Story
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Chinese landscape
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
St Kilda Pier, c.1945
SIR SIDNEY ROBERT NOLAN, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Kelly Study
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (Australian, 1917-1992)
Ned Kelly; Constable Fitzpatrick with Kate Kelly; Stringybark Creek; Glenrowan and the Trial
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Rain landscape
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Burke and Camel, 1966
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Snake; Portrait; and Danae
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Ned Kelly with his gun
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Landscape with bird
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Convict in swamp
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Man hunting bird
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Leda and the Swan
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
New Guinea Series: Central Australia
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Central Australian landscape
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Sketch for jewelled sculpture
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Kelly and Horse
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Bather, Soldier, Gallipoli; and Gallipoli study
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Kelly and horse; Kelly and horse; Carcase from the 'Dust' series
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Nine transfer drawings
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Seven carbon drawings
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Seven sketches for sculpture, Hydra, January-February 1956
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Nine designs for Shark, Snake, Little Snake and others
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan, O.M., R.A. (1917-1992)
Central Australian Landscape