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📍Gallery 8, Worldwide (Level 1)🎟️ Free, bookings essential.
⌛️ Duration: 45 minutes (including Q&A)
Elspeth Pitt in conversation with Virginia Rigney
Join Elspeth Pitt, Senior Curator, Australian Art, in conversation with Virginia Rigney, Senior Curator Visual Arts, Canberra Museum and Gallery, for a talk focused on Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly works.
Ned Kelly was a source of enduring fascination to Sidney Nolan. Kelly was a subject Nolan returned to throughout his life and whose life Nolan entwined with his own. His Kelly dressed in armour is iconic in Australian art.
Nolan’s first efforts to represent the life of the infamous nineteenth century bushranger were made between 1945 and 1947. While 25 of the 27 paintings comprising the so-called canonical Ned Kelly series were given to the National Gallery by Sunday Reed in 1976, Nolan had earlier given a group of related Kelly works to ‘the People of Australia’ in 1974. The Canberra Museum and Gallery is now custodian of these works, which are displayed in its dedicated Nolan Gallery. Further works from this initial Ned Kelly group are held in collections throughout Australia including the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Heide Museum of Modern Art.
In this talk, Elspeth and Virginia will explore Nolan’s interest in Kelly, the fracturing of the original Ned Kelly group across multiple collections and how the Kelly works continue to shape Nolan’s legacy as an artist.
Virginia Rigney is Senior Curator Visual Arts at Canberra Museum and Gallery where she works with the Commonwealth Nolan Collection. Recent projects have included Guns and Flowers : eX de Medici and Sidney Nolan, Finding the Dry Heart Sidney Nolan in Central Australia and the upcoming A Total work of Art: Sidney Nolan and the Stage.
Friday Art Talks is a free weekly program. Hear from artists, curators and experts on the works in our collection and exhibition program.
This talk is presented in partnership with Canberra Museum and Gallery in celebration the 50th Anniversary of Nolan’s gift.
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Virginia Rigney, Senior Curator, Canberra Museum and Gallery, and Elspeth Pitt, Senior Curator, Australia Art. The National Gallery of Australia, 2025. Photographer: Kerrie Brewer.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
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