Visual Arts / A Total Work of Art: Sidney Nolan and The Stage. At Canberra Museum and Gallery. Until  March 8, 2026. Reviewed by KERRY-ANNE COUSINS.

In 1974 Sidney Nolan gave a collection of 24 paintings to the people of Australia.

The gift included some of the earliest Ned Kelly paintings of 1946/53. They were paintings he had brought together (several he owned and others he bought back from private collections) to represent what he felt were key career works. Initially, the collection was housed at Lanyon but following the 2003 bushfires the paintings and subsequent additional works donated by Nolan were removed to CMAG. To celebrate this important anniversary CMAG has arranged a series of Nolan in Focus events to happen over the next two years.

Sidney Nolan and The Stage is the first of these events. The exhibition is small and does more to pique interest in Nolan’s designs for the stage than provide a comprehensive survey. Nolan began his painting career in a hat shop spraying large advertising display boards. This experience and his expertise with a spray gun as he notes was to serve him well.

In 1940 his paintings intrigued Serge Lifar of the Ballets Russes. Lifar asked Nolan to design the backdrop and costumes for a production of the ballet Icarus opening at the Theatre Royal in Sydney.

Initially his design was rejected as too dominant for the stage. Lifar wanted the movement of the dancers to be of primary importance. Nolan learnt quickly and his next design, a simplified linear backdrop referencing his memories of St Kilda pier and its Ferris wheel was a great success. Even in the small images in this exhibition – photographs and sketches and a gouache by the artist – it is easy to see the appeal of Nolan’s linear design as echoed in the costumes.

In 1964 Nolan was involved in the ballet production of The Display choreographed by Robert Helpmann for the Australian Ballet. It was staged at the opening of the Canberra Theatre in 1965.

The highlight of this exhibition is the actual Lyre Bird costume. The costume, like so many theatrical costumes, is now a hybrid of the original costume and alterations that have taken place over the years. What we are presented with is a very large ungainly birdlike figure with fearsome eyes. Only the magic of theatre lighting as shown in some accompanying production photographs can hint at the dramatic effect it must have had on stage. Canberra artist Daniel Maginnity has recreated with great care the original Nolan backdrop.

The CMAG exhibition also includes two other productions Nolan was engaged on – Stravinsky’s work The Rite of Spring in 1962 and Mozart’s Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail (Abduction from the Seraglio) in 1987 both staged initially in London.

The Rite of Spring was significant for Nolan’s use of imagery referencing his 1940 painting Boy and the Moon. Onstage the image of the round moon is recreated in metallic gold as the striking backdrop for this ballet based on mythical rituals of spring. The same glowing image in red was recreated by Nolan for the Mozart opera Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail.

Nolan as an artist was driven by a strong creative force. He was not afraid of innovation and did not accept that creativity was restricted to any one mode of expression – designing for the stage was only one small part of his prodigious output.

This small and intimate glimpse of this particular aspect of his career in this exhibition is illuminating. So little survives of an art form that is ephemeral – imagination is needed to fully appreciate just how astonishing the staging of these operatic and ballet performances were in their time. Sidney Nolan was able to create an appropriate dramatic context, by designing scenery and costumes that complemented the staging of these productions, while also being true to his creative vision.