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Article: Nolan's hero: the Sidney Nolan retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales has some curious gaps.(EXHIBITIONS)(Brief biography)
- Article from:
- Apollo
- Article date:
- January 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Apollo Magazine Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Sydney has a short attention span--and an even shorter memory. When this Sidney Nolan retrospective opened at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, no mention was made of Nolan's landmark 1967 show under the same roof, which so dazzled the novelist Patrick White: 'Sid has had wonderful triumphs right and left ... it was staggering to see all the imaginative and painting genius that has poured out of one man ... To me this has been the greatest event--not just in painting--in Australia in my lifetime.'
It is true that London, not Sydney, saw Nolan's greatest triumphs--both aesthetic and promotional. In 1960, his Leda and the Swan series at the Matthieson Gallery, ...