"Antarctic" "Wimmera Head" (verso)
Enamel on Board
62x74cm
Titled, Initialled & Dated 43 Lower Left
Prov: Works from the Estate of Sir Sidney Nolan.
Corporate Collection Adelaide
$15,000-18,000
Throughout his career, Sidney Nolan returned to a number of key subjects first developed in the 1940s, often revisiting them after extended periods. Themes such as Ned Kelly, Leda and the Swan, Mrs Fraser, Burke and Wills, and his early Antarctic imagery form a consistent thread within his practice, evolving over time while retaining their conceptual origins. The present work relates to one of Nolan’s earliest known engagements with Antarctica, a subject he would later revisit with renewed focus in the 1960s.
Although Nolan rarely addressed the Second World War directly, his works of the early 1940s often carry a strong psychological charge, shaped by the broader atmosphere of the period. Paintings such as Going to School (1942), Bathers (1943) and Lublin or Baroque Exterior (1944) demonstrate this tendency, where contemporary events are not depicted literally, but translated into images of displacement and unease. In this context, the present work, with its suggestion of a convoy navigating Antarctic waters, can be understood as part of this broader engagement with conflict and environment.
This period also reflects Nolan’s growing interest in more introspective forms of image-making, influenced in part by his exposure to the work of psychiatric patients through Dr Reg Ellery. Such influences contributed to a shift toward more expressive and psychologically driven compositions. As Nolan later noted, his observations of rural life in the Wimmera, its people, landscape and underlying tensions remained a lasting source of imagery, informing works that move between memory, observation and imagination.
