Burke And Camel

Sydney Nolan (1917-1992)

Sydney Nolan is best known for his Ned Kelly series, although during his career he also focussed on early Australian history, the vast and dry Australian landscape as well as many other iconic stories using his minimal and modernist style. Nolan was a member of the Angry Penguins, a group of ‘angry’ young creatives that introduced modernism to Australia. The artists included Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan and Albert Tucker. 

In 1860 Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills along with 17 comrades set out from Melbourne with the ambitious task of crossing the continent from the south, to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north. Doomed from the outset, the fateful expedition ingrained itself into Australian folklore with numerous writings and paintings devoted to it. The legend of Burke and Wills' voyage along with their epic struggle for survival in the outback captured Nolan's imagination.

Nolan has presented Burke stripped bare to accentuate his vulnerability within the unforgiving landscape. In this artwork, it appears that Nolan makes reference to a scene from William Wills' journal, dated 28th April 1861: 'One of the camels got bogged by the side of a waterhole, and although we tried every means in our power, we found it impossible to get him out'. 

Sydney Nolan is a highly collectable artist whose work has steadily increased in value over time and will continue to do so in the future.

Medium: coloured lithograph, signed and editioned on margin: Nolan AP

Date: 1973

Size: 44.5 x 55cm, frame 65x73cm

Condition: excellent, this artwork has been recently framed using conservation materials.

Item Number: 100110