Discover the visual and poetic influences of French painter Paul Cezanne and poet Arthur Rimbaud on the artist Sidney Nolan with independent curatorial researcher Dr Antonino Nielfi and CMAGs Senior Curator, Visual Arts Virginia Rigney. The talk will focus on selected works from the Remembrances of my youth and For the term of his natural life series, currently on display in the Threads and Connections exhibition at CMAG. In a public analysis of key drawings  and canvases, Nielfi and Rigney will identify the visual and lyrical narratives that fascinated Nolan throughout his artistic career. In his late works, Nolan synthetised his longstanding interests in these influences spanning from the French impressionists, Australian folk tales, Cubism, Symbolist literature and Surrealist art, in an enticing, bare visual language of essential lines and a basic colours.

 Dr Antonino Nielfi

Dr Antonino Nielfi holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Melbourne and an Arts degree from the University of Bergamo in Italy. Since 2012 he has been involved in postgraduate research on Italian and international modernism, modern and contemporary art, as well as fine and applied arts in Italy and Australia. He has presented the outcomes of his work in conferences and seminars in Australia and the United Kingdom and tutored in history of modern and contemporary art at the University of Melbourne. In 2013 and 2014 he was contracted by the Embassy of Italy in Canberra as a curatorial researcher on Italian modernist art, architecture and industrial design. In 2015 he was contracted by the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra as a curator of industrial design and has taught history of design and architecture at the Faculty since 2015. In late 2018 he began his collaboration as a curatorial and research intern at Canberra Museum and Gallery, where he has been conducting research on industrial design and the drawings presently on display in the Nolan collection. He is currently conducting original research on Nolan’s Rimbaud/Cezanne 1978 series of drawings and is writing a book on Italian Futurist art.