Posts by david

Mallacoota Musings

Posted by on Oct 9, 2016 in Comment | 1 comment

Mallacoota, midway between Sydney and Melbourne, is a small remote coastal town on the entrance shore of an extensive inlet. Surrounded by national park, it is simply magnificent. Utilising images, prose and the 5,7,5 syllable lines of Japanese Haiku – a nod to the bardic E. J. Brady – these musings reflect on Mallacoota, its magic, its minions and its mischief.  They will appear spasmodically, when mood and muse align.  A listing follows with dates of postings. CINDERELLA     ...

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aCOMMENT on “We who love: the Nolan slates”

Posted by on May 13, 2016 in Nolan | 0 comments

Rarely does one have the opportunity to see a body of little known and seldom exhibited works originating in a brief, discrete, yet significant period in the early career of an artist as famed as Sidney Nolan, probably the best known Australian painter of the twentieth century. We who love: the Nolan slates at Heide Museum of Modern Art in Melbourne, and before that at University of Queensland Art Museum, gives such an opportunity.   Apart from what it may tell us about...

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vale Mary Nolan

Posted by on Apr 30, 2016 in Nolan | 1 comment

With sadness aCOMMENT records the death of Lady Mary Nolan at her home The Rodd on the border of England and Wales on 6 April 2016. She was 89. Sidney Nolan’s third wife, he her second husband, her death has brought forth tributes aplenty many of which lament her passing in terms such as “a door has been closed” and “the light goes out”. On 26 April, four days after Nolan would have turned 99, she was laid to rest with him in Highgate Cemetery East beneath the...

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you, Lady, are the Tree: Nolan’s annunciation

Posted by on Apr 19, 2016 in Nolan | 0 comments

This evocative little image in gentle blues, whites and pinks set against the bold black outlining, is the first painting by Nolan reproduced in print. Inscribed Garden of Eden, it appeared as Woman and Tree in the 2nd edition of Angry Penguins which went to print in August 1941 when still produced in Adelaide with Max Harris the sole editor. A few weeks later, again titled Woman and Tree, it was included in the 3rd annual exhibition of the Contemporary Art...

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Nolan Centenary – “Imagining in Excited Reverie”

Posted by on Dec 20, 2015 in Nolan | 5 comments

  Born on 22 April 1917, Sidney Nolan’s centenary is less than two years away.  So far I’ve heard of no plans to mark the occasion with an exhibition or otherwise. [NOTE that this article was written in December 2015. Thirteen months later in January 2017, plans in the UK are well afoot and being publicised. Details may be seen on the Centenary page on the Sidney Nolan Trust website. I remain unaware of anything announced regarding Australia.] If this...

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