
Merryn Schriever
Managing Director, Australia
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Sold for AU$20,740 inc. premium
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Managing Director, Australia

Head of Sale, Senior Specialist
PROVENANCE
Sir Sidney Nolan, United Kingdom, until 1992
Lady Nolan, United Kingdom, until 2016
The Estate of Lady Nolan, United Kingdom
Nolan suffered a severe injury to his hand whilst serving in the army at Ballarat in 1943. In this retelling, Nolan symbolically casts himself in military slouch hat framed by the square of a Kelly helmet surrounding his head and depicts a face (a reworking of his wartime work The Vegetative Eye now in the collection of Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne), presumably that of his former lover and patron Sunday Reed, biting off his fingers. Nolan's poem, 'Ballarat', on this theme appeared in his book Paradise Garden in 1971.