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| Image | Sale date | Auction house | Location | Sale name | Lot No. | Estimate | Price Sold | Condition | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nov 17, 2021 | Bonhams | Melbourne | Sir Sidney Nolan | 133 | Estimates not disclosed | Antarctic Explorer |
paintings
122 x 122 cm (48.03 x 48.03 in)
oil on board
signed and dated lower centre: "18 Sept / 1964 / nolan"
dated verso: "18 Sept 1964"
Sir Sidney Nolan, United Kingdom, until 1992
Lady Nolan, United Kingdom, until 2016
The Estate of Lady Nolan, United Kingdom
RELATED WORKS
Explorer , 1964, oil on composition board, 121.9 x 121.9cm (NGA 2017.227); and Explorer , 1964, oil on composition board, 121.9 x 121.9cm (NGA 2017.231), both in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 2017 from the estate of Lady Nolan
The imagery of the hooded and goggled men encrusted in ice was inspired by photographs taken by Herbert Ponting during the Scott expedition and Frank Hurley who accompanied the Mawson and Shackleton expeditions. Nolan had used historic photographs before as source material for both the Kelly and Burke and Wills series. However, in the case of the Antarctic explorers his diary reveals additional visual references as diverse as Byzantine saints and Aboriginal carvings.
Allan Moorhead wrote in his introduction to the New York and London catalogues of the Antarctic paintings in 1965, "The polar explorer is an embattled figure with staring goggled eyes and a swirl of protective covering round his head and body... He is a static object, it is the landscape that moves: the drifting iceberg, the circling sun and the mirage towering up and dissolving on the heights above."
Sidney Nolan (1917-1992)
Antarctic Explorer, 1964
signed and dated lower centre: "18 Sept / 1964 / nolan"
dated verso: "18 Sept 1964"
oil on board
122.0 x 122.0cm (48 1/16 x 48 1/16in).
