Dimboola
1944
Medium
enamel paint on canvas
Measurements
63.8 × 76.9 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Sir Sidney and Lady Nolan, 1983
© The Estate of Sidney Nolan / Licensed by Copyright Agency, Australia
Gallery location
Gallery 8
Level 2, NGV Australia
About this work
In April 1942, Sidney Nolan was conscripted into the Australian army, serving in the Wimmera region of western Victoria, where he spent nearly two years based in the country town of Dimboola. Nolan spent many hours on guard duty, drawing and meditating on the landscape, the farmhouses, the small country towns dominated by towering wheat silos, the railway lifelines to the sea, and the immense, fertile wheat paddocks. The apparent naivety and spontaneity of these paintings and drawings are undermined by Nolan’s sophisticated sense of design and colour. They are among the best and most intensely felt of all of his art, marking his first sustained engagement with the Australian landscape.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Dimboola, Victoria
Inscription
inscribed in blue paint l.c.: 13-9-44 / N (reversed)
inscribed in black crayon on reverse u.c.l.: 1944 / Dimboola / Nolan (N reversed)
inscribed (inverted) in black crayon on reverse l.l.: 10
Accession Number
A38-1983
Department
Australian Painting
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation
Subjects (general)
Cityscapes Human Figures Relationships and Interactions
Subjects (specific)
Australia (nation) Dimboola (inhabited place) men (male humans) moons night townscapes (representations) Victoria (state) women (female humans)
Movements
Angry Penguins
Frame
Reproduction, 2002, based on film footage from 1944