Skip to main content
Menu

The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.

The Gallery’s Acknowledgement of Country, and information on culturally sensitive and restricted content and the use of historic language in the collection can be found here.

Self portrait

1988
Sidney Nolan

oil on composition board (frame: 135.0 cm x 104.5 cm, support: 121.5 cm x 91.5 cm)

Sir Sidney Nolan AC OM CBE, among the most original and inventive Australian artist of the post-war decades, was one of the few Australian artists to achieve an international reputation in the twentieth century. After becoming associated with the modernist art patrons John and Sunday Reed, he made the complex series of paintings of Ned Kelly for which he is best known at their home Heide between 1945 and 1947. From 1950 Nolan lived abroad, but returned to Australia at regular intervals and continued to explore Australian themes and landscapes. A major retrospective of his work, Sidney Nolan – A New Retrospective, held at the Art Gallery of NSW in 2007, brought together more than 100 of his works.

Nolan painted a number of self portraits, beginning early in his career. The merged inky blues, pinks and subtle greys of this example are characteristic of the artist's late style. While there is a trace of a satisfied smile, the face is elusive, hazy, veiled, with the head apparently oscillating between profile and three-quarter view. Ultimately, the painting is ambiguous, seeming, like all Nolan's self portraits, to allude simultaneously to his public persona and his internal imagination – to both the mask, and the inner poetry of the artist.

Gift of Hon RL Hunter KC 2006. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Sidney Nolan/Copyright Agency, 2024

The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. Works of art from the collection are reproduced as per the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). The use of images of works from the collection may be restricted under the Act. Requests for a reproduction of a work of art can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.
Audio description icon

Audio description


Show transcript

Artist and subject

Sidney Nolan (age 71 in 1988)

Subject professions

Visual arts and crafts

Donated by

Hon. R L. Hunter KC (1 portrait)

© National Portrait Gallery 2024
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia

Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196

The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

This website comprises and contains copyrighted materials and works. Copyright in all materials and/or works comprising or contained within this website remains with the National Portrait Gallery and other copyright owners as specified.

The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. The use of images of works of art reproduced on this website and all other content may be restricted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Requests for a reproduction of a work of art or other content can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.

The National Portrait Gallery is an Australian Government Agency