Riverbending in Excited Reverie: Nolan’s Parables of Sunlight
This tribute by David Rainey, creator of this website and editor of the centenary tribute to Sidney Nolan Imagining in Excited Reverie, is a work of the imagination. It takes the form of an imaginary text supposedly written by Sidney Nolan himself, and of course not found among his papers after his death on 28 November 1992. Whilst obviously a work of fiction as to the words used and some opinions held, it is nevertheless largely based on fact and on Nolan’s own statements.1 It is...
Read MoreLooking in Excited Reverie: Another look at Nolan
This essay by Simon Pierse pairs nicely with Felicity Moore’s Sid, Ned and Dan in examining and paying tribute to Nolan’s art-making and universality – this piece seeking its emotional source and intensity, the other examining the pivotal role of First Class Marksman. Both take a wry look at the Nolan awry. Here, inter alia, Simon Pierse draws on Cynthia Nolan’s written descriptions of her husband’s creative process. A TRIBUTE BY SIMON PIERSE Looking...
Read MoreChallenged in Excited Reverie: Sid, Ned and Dan – “Marksman” connections
This essay by Felicity Moore pairs nicely with Simon Pierse’s Another look at Nolan in examining and paying tribute to Nolan’s art-making and universality – this piece examining the pivotal role of First Class Marksman, the other seeking an emotional source and intensity. Both take a wry look at the awry in Nolan. Here, Felicity St John Moore draws together her studies on the role of Danila Vassilieff in Nolan’s first series Kelly paintings in light of some new research...
Read MoreMick and Sid: Explorers of the Australian landscape
This tribute by Judith White, author of Culture Heist: Art versus Money which exposes managerialism and foreshadows corporatisation at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (read review here), explores landscape in the paint of Sidney Nolan and the pen of Randolph Stow, and in the excited reverie of their imaginative minds. Outsiders both and friends for decades, Mick and Sid were contributors to the 1965 Yeats centenary book In Excited Reverie on which these Nolan Centenary...
Read MoreExpatriatism in Excited Reverie
A TRIBUTE BY BRIAN ADAMS Last year I published “Sidney Nolan’s Odyssey – a Life” timed strategically to mark the centenary of the painter’s birth in Melbourne on 22 April 1917. I assumed, quite reasonably, that several major happenings would be announced – particularly in his home town – to celebrate one of Australia’s most famous and honoured sons, culturally or otherwise. But apparently not! There was a two-week, not-for-purchase exhibition of his...
Read MorePoem in Excited Reverie: Randolph Stow for Sidney Nolan
In 1962 Sidney Nolan and Randolph Stow collaborated in the publication of Outrider, Stow’s poems written 1956-1962 and illustrated by Nolan. The two Australians found an affinity and their friendship lasted 30 years. One of the poems, “The Land’s Meaning”, was written for Nolan. It is included here as Stow’s tribute to his friend. Another tribute relating to Nolan and Stow, prepared by Judith White, will appear in Imagining in Excited Reverie...
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