One of Australia’s leading artists of the twentieth century, Sidney Nolan had a lifelong fascination with the elusive notion of paradise and the consequences of its loss.

For him it was a driving impulse that fueled both his creativity and need for deeper self-understanding. This illustrated talk considers the theme of paradise and its inversion in Nolan’s art, beginning with images of Heide, where he lived with art patrons John and Sunday Reed in the 1940s, followed by paintings of the Australian landscape and its mythic figures, images of later restless travels, a selection of telling self-portraits and the seductive yet toxic tropical jungle of his Paradise Garden series.

Kendrah Morgan is Head Curator at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Naarm/Melbourne. She has worked as a curator since 1998, initially at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in Aotearoa New Zealand. Kendrah publishes and lectures widely on modern and contemporary Australian art and has curated survey exhibitions of the work of artists such as Sidney Nolan, Joy Hester, Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd, and Fiona Hall.

She has co-authored four books, including Modern Love: The Lives of John and Sunday Reed, which was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction and the Colin Roderick Award.

Image:
Installation view, Canberra Museum and Gallery