Sidney Nolan’s "Ned Kelly" Series
The Ned Kelly series showcases renowned Australian artist Sidney Nolan’s paintings of the 19th-century bushranger Ned Kelly. Painted in 1946 and 1947, the series is considered one of the greatest series of Australian paintings of the 20th century.
Ned Kelly
Ned Kelly holds an outsized place in Australia's cultural psyche. Not everyone likes him—though many do—but they all know him.
Ned led the Kelly Gang, a group of bushrangers who, in the late 1870s, became infamous for a series of brazen robberies. Beyond his criminal escapades, Ned was viewed by many as a symbol of defiance against the British colonial authority and the harsh treatment of the Irish settlers. His story resonated with many Australians who felt oppressed by the ruling class and the law enforcement of the time. He is often compared to Robin Hood or Pancho Villa—a working-class hero sticking it to the man.
He wasn’t active for very long. His gang essentially rampaged through the state of Victoria for less than three years—during which they became the most wanted men in the British Empire. It started with the attempted murder of a policeman trying to arrest Kelly’s younger brother.
Not much later, the gang came upon four policemen camped at Stringybark Creek and killed three of them, making them outlaws. After hiding in the bush for a couple years and robbing the occasional bank, the gang’s run ended in a final confrontation with the police at the Glenrowan Siege in 1880.
The Kelly Gang had planned an ambitious attack to derail a police train and capture its occupants. They took several hostages at the Glenrowan Inn to use as leverage, but their plan was foiled when one of the hostages escaped and alerted the police.
Leading up to the siege, to protect against police bullets, Kelly had constructed armor cobbled together with heavy iron from plow blades. The armor included helmets and breast, back, and shoulder plates. The most recognizable part of the armor was the helmet, which covered the entire head and face with a narrow slit for vision.
When the police surrounded the inn, there was an intense and prolonged shootout that ultimately overwhelmed the gang. All three of Kelly’s compatriots—Dan Kelly, Steve Hart, and Joe Byrne—and two of the hostages were killed in the crossfire. Ned Kelly made a last stand in his armor despite being severely wounded but was eventually captured.
The siege is remembered as a tragic and dramatic end to the Kelly Gang's exploits. Ned Kelly was subsequently tried and hanged for his crimes, cementing his place as a controversial and legendary figure in Australian history.
Sydney Nolan
Nolan was long fascinated by Kelly’s short but poetic and politically charged life. He especially liked Kelly’s Jerilderie Letter,1 using Kelly’s words to bring a unique narrative depth to this set of works.
But the series isn't just a literal recount of Kelly’s life—it’s also a reflection on Nolan’s own experiences and the post-war world. Each painting, from the eerie landscapes to the dramatic moments like the siege at Glenrowan, tells a part of Kelly’s story while echoing Nolan’s personal journey.
Inspired by another literary hero, the French poet Henri Rousseau, Nolan embraced a naïve, vibrant style for this series. He used simple, bold colors and painted quickly, capturing the raw energy and immediacy of the scenes. Kelly’s black, slotted helmet stands out across these bold landscapes, becoming an iconic symbol of Australian national lore.
More than mere illustration, these paintings celebrate Australia’s bush and its stories. The landscapes are as much a character in the narrative as Kelly himself, grounding the saga in a sense of place and history.
Most notes contain an initial comment or quote contemporaneous with the events depicted taken from a variety of historical sources, including newspapers of the day, The inner history of the Kelly gang by JJ Kenneally, and the Royal Commission’s 1881 report on the Victorian police force and the conduct of the hunt for the Kelly gang. The comments within the large quote marks were made by Nolan himself regarding the event or the panel in a conversation with Australian artist Elwyn Lynn in 1984.
Landscape, 1947
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The 'Kelly Country' is that portion of north-eastern Victoria which extends from Mansfield in the south to Yarrawonga in the north, and from Euroa in the south-west to Tallangatta in the north-east.
I put a fire or a setting sun on the horizon...I wanted a clear ambiguity because this was a tranquil scene for the subsequent violence. It's along the Goulburn River.
That muddy, opaque quality of the dam is very Australian; muddy under the serene, clear blue sky.
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Ned Kelly, 1946
We rob their banks
We thin their ranks.
And ask no thanks.
For what we do.
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This is Kelly the defiant. I put Kelly on top of the horse in a particularly orderly manner. I wanted an air of perfect authority. It looks simple but I wanted the maximum feeling of space, so the cloud appears through the aperture in the mask.
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The burning tree, 1947
At one time during a police search in the Warby Ranges I allowed the men, seeing they had had no warmth for weeks, to set fire to an old hollow tree.
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It is typical of Australia that to keep warm the policemen set fire to a whole, standing hollow tree, which would have been a blazing beacon to any Kellys or their friends. It looks spectacular, Wagnerian.
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Constable Fitzpatrick and Kate Kelly, 1946
Kate, in the exercise of her domestic duties, was passing by Fitzpatrick when the latter seized her and pulled her on to his knee.
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That is what the fireplace looked like and the objects on the mantelshelf were really there. The action looks a little comic but it began the real trouble. Kelly is very observant and watchful.
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Morning camp, 1947
Ned Kelly knew all our camps in the Warby Ranges.
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He would describe the constables who used to go and look for the horses at daylight, and the one who was told to light the fire and boil the billy of tea.
I was amused that the police had hammocks in the bush. It seemed to indicate something of comic opera.
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Steve Hart dressed as a girl, 1947
He appears to have been possessed of a considerable courage and resource, and during the period of his outlawry frequently rode about in feminine attire.
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All the Kellys may have dressed like this at times to deceive people for fun. The picture is as posed as the rider. The story is that Steve Hart, dressed as a girl, won a race at the Greta Races, riding side-saddle.
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Township, 1947
The peaceful town of Mansfield.
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I think that this and The watch tower are good paintings of sleepy, hazy and dusty country towns in the heat. This is where they brought the dead policemen and I was intrigued by violence in peaceful settings.
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Quilting the armour, 1947
Mrs Skillion, who was Margaret Kelly, sat out in the evenings sewing the soft blue quilting into the headpiece of the armour.
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The armour casts a heavy, baneful shadow. Kelly's sister is quilting the helmet to protect a precious head and it's done with tenderness and love, while a peaceful world goes about its life.
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Death of Constable Scanlon, 1946
He was in the act of firing again when Ned Kelly fired, and Scanlon fell from his horse and died almost immediately.
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In a sudden, violent accident time seems to stand still. I have exaggerated; the bridle must have been long, but that and the levitated horse and constable increase the unreality of violent events. Kelly seems to be present only as a force of destiny.
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Stringybark Creek, 1947
If left alive Kennedy would, Kelly said, be left to a slow torturing death at the mercy of ants, flies, and the packs of dingoes. Therefore he decided to put an end to the sufferings of the wounded sergeant, and, as the latter momentarily turned his head, Kelly fired and shot him through the heart.
Death of Sergeant Kennedy at Stringybark Creek, 1946
Kelly: "Had he been my own brother I could not help shooting. I put his cloak over him and left him as honourable as I could!"
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Matters are not separated here. They are forced right against the eye, terror and evil so close that no one is seen as a whole; everyone is cut off in both senses of the word. Kelly is cool and natural.... No compassion; the natural thing to do.
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The watch tower, 1947
From the tower, which we mounted in shifts, a good view could be had of the town in all directions, and in particular of the roads by which we might expect the outlaws to arrive.
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This is really about myself. I used to climb the water tower at Horsham in Victoria and look at the sleepy town and think, dream and imagine.
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The alarm, 1946–1947
A peacock which used to sleep on the top of a tin shed. The bird was accustomed to making cries at the approach of any stranger.
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People used peacocks as 'watch birds': they could see people two miles off. I was amused by the oddity of peacocks in Australia and their being put to such a use.
The pale-faced policeman does not know how close observers may be; remember that policemen had been killed.
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The chase, 1946
I am sure the police would not ride them down in a day; they would have to hunt them down, but not ride them down—the outlaws were well mounted.
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Kelly had been black but I put the stripes as though he may have played Australian Rules, you might think, but the same stripes occur as wallpaper in the burning Glenrowan Hotel. Events casting their shadows before them?
The policeman goes the opposite way...wisely.
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The encounter, 1946
Should a constable encounter one of these outlaws, he should apprehend him with the maximum efficiency and devotion to duty.
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Many of the policemen did not want to encounter the Kellys.
Kelly was a wrathful myth in his own day and the frightened policeman got out of the way in the corner of the painting and gave Kelly centre stage.
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The marriage of Aaron Sherritt, 1947
We police regarded him as a valuable and cunning spy. He got married on Boxing Day, 1879. Constable Barry was at that time in charge of the search party hidden in the cave. After his marriage we regarded him as less trustworthy.
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This is a story within the Kelly story; a double informer?
Actually, the police were hidden in the caves. Sherritt had been a member of the gang and was now marrying into a family friendly with the Kellys. They were an Irish bunch and Sherritt had gone too far: 'It's a shame, but we will shoot him.'
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The defence of Aaron Sherritt, 1946
Mrs Sherritt: "They (the police) were in that position when Dan Kelly was in the room. I was put under the bed. Constable Dowling pulled me down...and then Armstrong caught hold of me, and the two of them shoved me under."
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A satirical title and a rather scornful portrayal, but the police thought the whole gang was outside and they had heard Sherritt shot. The quilt is real. A friend who was in the army with me gave it to me. It was made by people in a Heidelberg hospital.
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The evening, 1946–1947
At times, when the troopers and black-trackers had made camp, I would ride ahead in the evening; thinking perhaps to find some clue to the outlaws' movements by travelling alone.
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This is right out of the commission report. It gives a slightly more sympathetic view of the police. There is a feeling of innocence and the horse is right out of early hunting prints.
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Bush picnic, 1946
On one occasion the outlaws had arranged to have a picnic some distance from Violet Town. The Kellys' friends flattered the constable and shouted freely for him. He got pretty full and someone suggested dancing on the green. Good music was available and Ned Kelly took the merry constable as his partner in a buck set.
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This is just a story. If I were making a film, I could have the policeman and the members of the gang in disguise but this is as impossible as the horse in the evening: It's a fantasy.
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The questioning, 1947
The troopers enquired at the homestead as to the whereabouts of the outlaws, but were told to ask the old man who was up bathing himself in the dam.
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The police did not question the old man as they knew he would misdirect them, but thought the wife could be bluffed, but she was shrewd and well trained and like a good wife would misdirect them. My uncle Jack used to wash himself with a bar of laundry soap in the dam; Velvet soap in fact.
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The slip, 1947
The gully was exceedingly rough and precipitous. So much so that on one occasion as we were ascending in single file one of the packhorses lost its footing and fell.
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I was proud that l'd got the horses going up the hill all right.
It was difficult for me. One of the pack horses had fallen, so I decided to put it upside down and give levitation another aspect. It is a dreadful descent and the horse will fall forever. I am nearing the climax of the tragedy.
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Burning at Glenrowan, 1946
Very Rev. Dean Gibney: "I got no answer, of course, and I looked in and found the bodies of Dan Kelly and Steve Hart lying together. As far as I could tell they were burnt from the waist up."
Siege at Glenrowan, 1946
At about eight o'clock in the morning a heart-rending wail of grief ascended from the hotel. The voice was easily distinguished as that of Mrs Jones, the landlady. Mrs Jones was lamenting the fate of her son, who had been shot in the back by the police, as she supposed fatally. She came out of the hotel crying bitterly and wandered into the bush on several occasions, etc.
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These (Burning at Glenrowan and Siege at Glenrowan) were once joined together and I had Mrs Reardon and her baby still fleeing for their lives. It was once six feet by four, but late one night, Jack Bellew, a journalist, said, 'Look Sid, that painting is too bloody big, cut it in two.' I told him to leave it alone, but to prove it was not too big, I would cut it in two.
You see I come from a long line of Irishmen. So I cut it and looked at them separated and together, and they looked better together. Unfortunately I parted them forever.
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Glenrowan, 1946
Such is life.
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This is subtitled, as it were, 'Such is life!' Muster up your spirits and go out as well as you can. The police thought they were an army so I gave them, satirically, a regimental goat.
The Aboriginal trackers are there with tribal markings. Irish police and non-Irish police, Aborigines from a remote culture and outlaws all meeting on this fateful stage, like the final act of an opera, all lined up. No wonder the sky went crimson.
Mrs Reardon is still there, the baby with a different shawl. She changed it as she ran along; a good mother.
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The trial, 1947
Judge Barry then passed sentence of death, and concluded with the usual formula: "May the Lord have mercy on your soul!"
Ned Kelly: "Yes, I will meet you there!"
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The tiled floor in red and white was in a house I was in once.
The courthouse was in South Melbourne and through the left-hand window you can see sailing ships of the time.
The candelabra is true to life. The judge wears the black cloth of death and below is a sergeant with a rolled, sealed document that spells doom for Kelly. Of course, it could not have then been ready. Kelly told Judge Barry that he would soon see him in the next world, which is not a very polite thing to say to a man who's just sentenced you to death.
Strangely enough, Mr Justice Barry, a great man, who did many good deeds, went home to bed and died a fortnight later, from, it is said, a septic carbuncle.
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