Whilst looking for a place to stay near Wales, we found a beautiful cottage rented out by the Sidney Nolan Trust. We didn’t know who Sidney Nolan was but we learnt a lot whilst we stayed in the cottage.
Sidney Nolan was a major Australian artist in the 20th century. He was, we learnt, most famous for a series of paintings of Ned Kelly, the infamous Australian outlaw who wore a metal helmet with a slit for his eyes.
In Australia, Nolan was a close friend of arts patrons John and Sunday Reed. He became part of the couple’s liberal lifestyle, which contributed to his first marriage breaking up. Sunday Reed apparently contributed significantly to the Ned Kelly series of paintings. Arguably, he never produced anything as good. Nolan and Sunday had an open affair but she refused to leave her husband and Nolan ended up marrying her husband’s sister, Cynthia. Cynthia later died of an overdose.
Nolan, angered that Sunday wouldn’t leave her husband for him, left the Reed residence and gave his paintings to Sunday. This was the source of discord later. When asked for them back, Sunday returned many paintings but not the Ned Kelly series, possibly because she considered them a collaboration between Nolan and herself. Eventually, she gave the series to the National Gallery of Australia, which resolved the dispute.
After 30 years in London, Nolan and his third wife settled in Presteigne in 1983. He died in 1992. His home is now the headquarters of the Sidney Nolan Trust.
The cottage we stayed in was built by his third wife because she didn’t want to live in the huge mansion after her husband died. However, after a brief period in the cottage, she returned to the adjacent main house.
We were lucky to have been given an unofficial tour of the main house, including his studio. Much of the house is still in the state Nolan left it. Some of his paintings, books, and exhibition posters are strewn everywhere and still need to be catalogued.
Our purpose in going to Presteigne was not to learn about Sir Sidney Nolan! We wanted to do some hiking and visit Hay-on-Wye, which was close. As can be the case in the area, we picked a rainy week. We managed to get a few short walks in without getting too wet.
