Sidney Nolan is noted for his depictions of the history and mythology of bush life in Australia; paintings rich in colour, striking in composition and deliberately awkward in technique. He oft represented Australian stories of loss, failure, and capture, particularly in his Ned Kelly series.
However, his response to the Holocaust has until now remained unseen and unknown. Sydney Jewish Museum presents Shaken to his Core: The Untold Story of Nolan’s Auschwitz, on view until 23 October 2022. This exhibition comprises a series of fifty paintings, from portraits of war criminal Adolf Eichmann to images of Auschwitz prisoners; skeletal, screaming and shrouded in smoke. When visiting the concentration camp in 1961, Nolan was so “shaken to his core” by what he saw that he refused a commission and never painted these atrocities again.

Portrait of Sidney Nolan in the 1940s. Photograph: Albert Tucker. Courtesy Sydney Jewish Museum, New South Wales