Nolan Gallery

The Nolan Gallery’s Foundation Collection consists of twenty-four paintings given to the people of Australia by the artist Sidney Nolan in 1974.

The paintings were entrusted to the then Department of the Capital Territory which had responsibility for Lanyon, an historic homestead opened to the public in March 1975. Nolan considered Lanyon a perfect setting for his paintings as the environment matched the mood of his work.

Plans to restore and furnish Lanyon as an historic house museum involved the relocation of the paintings to a new gallery specially built to house them in the grounds of Lanyon. The artist opened this new gallery in March 1980.

In addition to the Nolan Gallery’s Foundation Collection shown below, Sir Sidney Nolan has donated three further collections to be housed at the Nolan Gallery; two of drawings, ‘For the Term of His Natural Life’ and ‘Rimbaud/Cézanne’; and one of twenty paintings from the Illumination series.

These collections are occasionally included in the gallery’s changing exhibitions program, which seeks to include further work by Nolan and his contemporaries.