Provenance: The Estate of Sir Sidney Nolan

On June 11, 1940 Nolan held his first one man show in his studio in Russell Street, Melbourne. Small abstracts and collages were exhibited. John Reed, who was to play an integral role in Nolan’s development as an artist, opened the exhibition remarking that “it is something new which this individual artist - whose extreme sensitivity never ceases to astonish and thrill me - is doing, creating purely and simply out of his own unique reactions to the world he lives in. In this country in particular…work of this nature is of inestimable value.”1

Painted the same year as this first show, Untitled (red abstract) 1940 exemplifies the dynamic and complex abstraction of Nolan’s early compositions. Much of this work is inspired by the dense steel patterns of the ‘Big Dipper’ at St Kilda’s Luna Park. The distinctive element for a number of Nolan’s early abstractions, reference to the Luna Park structures are also notable in his original designs for Serge Lifar and the Ballet Russes Melbourne production of Icare 1940.

Nolan had been commissioned to design the sets and costumes for Icare after Lifar had seen his work in Melbourne. The theme of Icare was taken from the Greek myth of Icarus, the tragic hero who fell to his death after attempting to escape his tent-like cell on wings which he had attached to his body with wax. Painted on the reverse of this board is a painting related closely to Eyes (Tent Series) c.1940 (cat. no.5), both of which feature the four-leafed asterisk motif found in the final designs for the ballet.
RM

1 John Reed, 11 June 1940, quoted in Clark. J., Sidney Nolan: Landscapes and Legends, International Cultural Corporation of Australia Limited (ICCA), 1987, p.16.

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