Provenance:
The Estate of Sir Sidney Nolan
Private collection Geneva

Exhibited:
Sidney Nolan, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 
25 July - 7 August, 1979, no.16.

Literature:
Sidney Nolan, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 
25 July - 7 August, 1979 (illustrated, plate 16).

Nolan began painting his tent series in the late 1930s, in a series of small paintings and drawings related closely to the poetry of William Blake. As discussed earlier, after seeing this work, choreographer Serge Lifar commissioned Nolan to design the sets and costumes for the Ballet Russes production of Icare in Melbourne in 1940. Drawing inspiration from artists such as Miro, Picasso and Klee, these early ‘abstract’ works symbolise a type of captivity, reflected in Nolan’s depiction of Icarus’ escape from the tent-like structures. The abstracted forms in this early tent painting, reflect the grids and curves both of his designs for Icare and also the later Luna Park paintings. As Nicholas Usherwood explains, “the repeated use of the tent image makes this one of the first such consciously developed series in what was to become a consistent method of developing his work through the rest of his life”.2
AL

1 Clark J., Sidney Nolan: Landscapes and Legends, ICCA, Sydney, 1987, p.35.
2 Usherwood N., Nolan’s Nolans: A Reputation Reassessed, Agnew’s, London, 1997, p.4.