Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly

Sidney Nolan (1917--1992) built a compelling narrative around the figure of Ned Kelly, a colorful and wronged anti-hero in homemade armor, and the comic-opera police who pursue him through the vast and featureless Australian bush landscape. The mythologizing of Ned Kelly -- a horsethief hanged in Melbourne in 1880, at age 25 -- did not start with Nolanís paintings, but his images remain the most enduring and instantly recognizable versions. With the stark black silhouette of Ned Kelly, Nolan found his most powerful symbol and poetic metaphor for Australiansí relationship with their land.