Journey with Sidney Nolan across the African continent in this richly illustrated monograph Australia thinks it knows Sidney Nolan. But that is far from the truth. Nolan’s Africa looks at the artist in a way that he has never been looked at before. Andrew Turley takes readers on a journey from the United Nations Headquarters in New York to a suspected assassination on the Congo border, from the crematoria of Auschwitz to the formation of the World Wildlife Fund and on to the plains of the Serengeti. He walks in Nolan’s footsteps across Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia, seeing the world through the artist’s eyes. Written over twelve years and across three continents, this is the first book based on the newly opened Sidney Nolan Archives at the National Library of Australia, containing never-before-seen diaries, photographs and personal notes. The result is a rich narrative that weaves together art, adventure, philosophy, global politics and world history. Artistic influences and processes, breathtaking in their scope, are laid bare as the thoughtful balance of text and images urges readers to consider the effect that the Holocaust, animal extinctions, colonial disenfranchisement and human conflict had on the artist and society. Full of energy, texture and colour, Nolan’s Africa is a compelling picture of one of the most complex and famous painters of the twentieth century, shining new light on his examination of nature, human nature and the nature of modern civilisation.
