In a country that is not formally known for its art, Australian artist Sidney Nolan is a standout. Sidney was born in 1917 and lived until 1992. He is probably best known for his Ned Kelly painting series based upon the bushranger folk hero of the same. His personal life was pretty interesting in itself riddled with affair.
In 1952 northern Queensland was suffering one of the worst droughts in Australia’s history up until that time. Sidney Nolan was commissioned by the Brisbane newspaper The Courier Mail to travel to the far north to document his journey through medium format photographs. The haunting images of death and despair were too gruesome for The Courier Mail to publish. Sidney attempted to sell them to Life magazine who also passed on the work leading him to shelf the project. This series of images, Drought, were the only photos that Sidney ever planned to be an exhibition. The exhibition finally happened in 2011, many years after his passing.
