The director of the Nolan Gallery at Lanyon, Angela Philp, said yesterday that of 300 works at the gallery, about 100 had been lent by Nolan. The rest had been given by him.
“”He loved Lanyon,” Ms Philp said. “”We wanted to be buried here under a tree.”
Ms Philp hopes the lent works will remain with the others at the gallery.
Nolan gave a foundation collection of 24 works to the nation in 1975. Because he loved Lanyon so much, they were housed at the Lanyon homestead, just south of what is now Tuggeranong. The gallery was built in 1980 and it housed the growing collection. The collection includes the first painting in the Ned Kelly series among many in the Kelly series. It has works from the Rimbaud Cezanne series and For the Term of his Natural Life series, among others, and a Burke and Wills painting.
“”The collection represents the heroes, rebels and battlers,” Ms Philp said.
“”The Burke and Wills painting shows the tragedy of their struggle with the landscape. Nolan created a new symbolic language for the Australian landscape. He called himself an eccentric rather than concentric artist. He was willing to take risks.”
His feeling for Lanyon was reflected in the fact he had even bought back paintings from private collections so they could be housed there.
Ms Philp thought is appropriate that the works stayed there.
Canberra is blessed with the richest collection of Nolan works. He gave 100 paintings to the National Gallery of Australia in 1974 and 180 paintings and drawings in the Gallipoli series to Australian War Memorial 1977.