Nolan's Africa is the first book drawn from the newly opened Sidney Nolan Archives at the National Library of Australia, tracing the painter's engagement with the African continent through never-before-seen diaries, photographs, and personal notes.
About This Book
Australia believes it knows Sidney Nolan. This book dismantles that certainty. Written over twelve years and across three continents, Andrew Turley's investigation takes Nolan far beyond Ned Kelly and the Australian outback — into the politics of decolonisation, the founding of the World Wildlife Fund, and the shadow of the Holocaust. Moving from the United Nations Headquarters in New York to the plains of the Serengeti, from Auschwitz to a suspected assassination on the Congo border, the book reconstructs how Nolan's encounters with Africa shaped his understanding of nature, human nature, and modern civilisation. A serious work of art history and biography that refuses easy myth-making.
Key Features
- 352 pages of narrative text interwoven with archival photographs, personal diaries, and reproduced artworks
- Written by Andrew Turley, drawing on twelve years of research across three continents
- First publication based on the Sidney Nolan Archives at the National Library of Australia
- Published by Melbourne University Publishing, ISBN 9780522880250
What You'll Discover
- How Nolan's African travels brought him into contact with the formative global politics of the mid-twentieth century, including decolonisation and the birth of international conservation movements
- The influence of the Holocaust on Nolan's artistic philosophy, examined through his visits to Auschwitz and his evolving preoccupation with human conflict and extinction
- Previously unpublished material from the Sidney Nolan Archives — diaries, photographs, and personal notes that fundamentally reframe his biography
- The connective tissue between Nolan's artistic processes and the landscapes, wildlife, and political upheavals he witnessed across Tanzania, Uganda, and Ethiopia
About the Author
Andrew Turley is the author of Nolan's Africa, a work researched over twelve years and across three continents. He is the first writer to have drawn on the Sidney Nolan Archives at the National Library of Australia, accessing material — including diaries, photographs, and personal notes — not previously available to researchers or the public.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 352
- Dimensions: 23 x 2.7 x 29.3 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9780522880250
- Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Readers interested in Australian art history, twentieth-century biography, and the intersection of visual art with global politics and postcolonial history.