A Study of Australian Artist - Sydney Nolan

The Legacy of a Hoax Poet - Ern Malley Portrait by Sydney Nolan

Who is Sydney Nolan? Sydney Nolan is a Melbourne painter, born in 1917 before the outbreak of the 1st World War. He received no formal academic training in art but his spontaneous style have strong influence by poets Rimbaud and Rilke as well as modernists artists such as Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Henri Rousseau.

Who is this portrait? This is a portrait of Ern Malley, depicted by Sydney Nalon in 1973, just created before his famous Ned Kelly series. It was painted at a time when he was doing some extensive travel. This painting was aimed for the Adelaide Festival exhibition to be displayed together with a series of collected poems. The exhibition recalled the Ern Malley affair that Nolan was involved in 30 years prior. It brought back some bitter memories. Nolan had to deal with some awful feelings when producing this Malley’s portrait.

The title of the poem is “Boutl and Marina” where the names were taken from one of Shakespear’s play. It was written by the fictitious modernist poet, Ern Malley, who was created by two hoaxers (conservative poets, James McAuley and Harold Stewart). They did this to fool the Angry Penguin magazine.
The Angry Penguin magazine was a leading magazine, ran by
Reeds and Harris who supported a group of artists and housed them in Heida. Sydney Nolan was one of the nurtured artists under the influence by their philosophy.

In Autumn 1943, both the magazine and Nolan received hostile criticism when the hoax was revealed. They were condemned for the poems’ emptiness and indecency. This incident led a court case and the publisher was jailed 6 weeks.

After some many years, Nolan recalled the event and painted this wounded Malley:-

What do you see in this portrait?

Features on the face

- There’re loose flesh, tears, bruise, blood, bared teeth and scar.
- The coarseness forehead and the exposed rib show that he is vulnerable and had been hurt.
- However, if one takes a close look at the portrait. One can see two big stared eyes with a pair of oversize spectacle. It may be showing that he can see audience clearly but they cannot look into him.
-The poking tongue with a half smiling mouth seems to indicate that he is far from defeated. Moreover he finds the audience amusing.


The use of color

-The depiction of Malley, perhaps is a projection of Nolan’s true feeling and reactions of the Mallery affair. It shows a aged maturity capable of dealing with this feeling.
-The transformation can be found by the use of green & red colour, a stable and complementary tone that shows the painter with a well-balanced state of mind.
- When comparing this painting with his 1943 self-portrait. This one is less vibrant, less define and less aggressive. He subscribed to a rather humorous and amusing outlook when shaping the character.
- The background shades seem to be some kind of shadows that he still couldn’t get over.

Modern elements

There’re modern elements in use on the description of Malley’s body, for example:

-The asymmetrical balance descriptions on the shirt and the exposed rib
-The geometric lines and forms on the collar and the pocket.

In summary, the features with which Malley was depicted are Nolan’s specific experience. The fake Malley and Nolan have a lot in common. They both love poetry. They were both non-combatants and victims of a brutal world at war. Nolan chose to defend himself by living through it and be amused by it.