Nolan: Australia's Maverick Artist (ATOM Study Guide)

Sidney Nolan is unquestionably one of the best known names in the history of Australian art. His images are iconic, treasures of the Australian visual language.

Everyone feels they know Nolan but that is far from the truth. He was a restless spirit, an exotic, boundlessly curious intellectual, mischievous with a creativity that was unrelenting – he was a genius. This film explores and celebrates the artist and the man, going well beyond his early years to his extraordinary international career and all the success and turmoil that came with it.

The prodigious Nolan came from humble working-class beginnings. From a young age he made his way straight to the centre of contemporary artistic and intellectual circles in Melbourne where he produced some of his most enduring images. Nolan then became tightly enmeshed in the complicated and doomed love affair that was to stay with him for the rest of his life.

On fire with the excitement of the international modernist movement, Nolan created the St Kilda paintings, the Wimmera, Ned Kelly and Central Australia series, passionate responses to the world, the landscape and the national mythology, but more importantly and more deeply, windows into the poetic psyche of the man. Fuelled by insatiable curiosity, Nolan became a tireless traveller, settling in London where he found 'his people', the stellar intellectual circle of musicians, writers, collectors and connoisseurs who became his lifelong friends.

While living in London, Nolan continued to visit and travel around Australia regularly because, he said simply, 'he was Australian', and then returned to England to paint what had inspired him there and in the many other places he visited and was inspired by. He thrived on challenge; he was an entrepreneur and an unselfconscious self-promoter who threw himself into music, theatre and opera design. This film captures the true Nolan, the complicated visionary whose remarkable works are a testament to his genius.

The film will show Nolan's unexamined work in new light, exploring the range of experimental, innovative qualities that marked him as one of the world's truly great painters in the twentieth century. A man ahead of his time, exploring digital manipulation in its early incarnations, experimenting with desiccated carcasses many decades before Damien Hirst, and taking selfies before Instagram was thought of. Nolan is far, far more than the Ned Kelly mask. He was an artist who took Australia to the world, and in turn the world to Australia.

Curriculum Links:

Nolan can be linked to the following subject areas within the Australian Curriculum:

• Media Arts (Years 7–10)
• Visual Arts (Years 9–10)
• English (Years 9–10)
• History (Year 10)

Relevant Content Descriptions for Media Arts (Years 7 and 8):

• Plan, structure and design media artworks that engage audiences (ACAMAM069)
• Analyse how technical and symbolic elements are used in media artworks to create representations influenced by story, genre, values and points of view of particular audiences (ACAMAR071)
• Identify specific features and purposes of media artworks from contemporary and past times to explore viewpoints and enrich their media arts making, starting with Australian media artworks including of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander media artworks (ACAMAR072)

Relevant Content Descriptions for Media Arts (Years 9 and 10):

• Experiment with ideas and stories that manipulate media conventions and genres to construct new and alternative points of view through images, sounds and text (ACAMAM073)
• Manipulate media representations to identify and examine social and cultural values and beliefs, including those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (ACAMAM074)
• Develop and refine media production skills to integrate and shape the technical and symbolic elements in images, sounds and text for a specific purpose, meaning and style (ACAMAM075)
• Plan and design media artworks for a range of purposes that challenge the expectations of specific audiences by particular use of production processes (ACAMAM076)
• Evaluate how technical and symbolic elements are manipulated in media artworks to create and challenge representations framed by media conventions, social beliefs and values for a range of audiences (ACAMAR078)
• Analyse a range of media artworks from contemporary and past times to explore differing viewpoints and enrich their media arts making, starting with Australian media artworks, including media artworks of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and international media artworks (ACAMAR079)

Relevant Content Descriptions for Visual Arts (Years 9 and 10):

Conceptualise and develop representations of themes, concepts or subject matter to experiment with their developing personal style, reflecting on the styles of artists, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists (ACAVAM125)

• Manipulate materials, techniques, technologies and processes to develop and represent their own artistic intentions (ACAVAM126)
• Develop and refine techniques and processes to represent ideas and subject matter (ACAVAM127)
• Plan and design artworks that represent artistic intention (ACAVAM128)
• Evaluate how representations communicate artistic intentions in artworks they make and view to inform their future art-making (ACAVAR130)
• Analyse a range of visual artworks from contemporary and past times to explore differing viewpoints and enrich their visual art-making, starting with Australian artworks, including those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and consider international artworks (ACAVAR131)

Relevant Content Descriptions for English (Years 9 and 10):

• Explore and reflect on personal understanding of the world and significant human experience gained from interpreting various representations of life matters in texts (ACELT1635)
• Investigate and experiment with the use and effect of extended metaphor, metonymy, allegory, icons, myths and symbolism in texts, for example poetry, short films, graphic novels, and plays on similar themes (ACELT1637) 
• Compare and evaluate a range of representations of individuals and groups in different historical, social and cultural contexts (ACELT1639)
• Create sustained texts, including texts that combine specific digital or media content, for imaginative, informative, or persuasive purposes that reflect upon challenging and complex issues (ACELY1756)

Relevant Content Descriptions for History (Year 10): The Modern World and Australia, Depth Study 3: The Globalising World 'Popular Culture 1945 – Present':

• The nature of popular culture in Australia at the end of World War II, including music, film and sport (ACDSEH027)
• Continuity and change in beliefs and values that have influenced the Australian way of life (ACDSEH149)