Death of Constable Scanlon, 1946

The sequence of the Kelly works is not fixed, but in the order given by art historian Andrew Sayers: Death of Constable Scanlon is the first schism or major point of action in the series. While searching for the Kelly gang, Constable Scanlon was shot dead. In Nolan’s portrayal, Scanlon’s body is thrown wildly into the air while the his horse is also rattled. Kelly, meanwhile, is subdued. His eyes are dark and downcast and his body is pitch black and condensed. Overhead, grey and black skies ominously overtake the blue.

Steve Hart Dressed as a Girl, 1947

While Nolan tells us that it was not uncommon for members of the Kelly gang to dress in feminine attire for fun and subterfuge, the deadpan image of Steve Hart wearing a floral-patterned dress over his shirt and tie, riding side-saddle, is a sight to behold. This is a very different sensibility to the classic image of Ned Kelly on his horse. As if to accentuate the blurring of gender boundaries, and dropping the mask for another kind of guise, Nolan softens the landscape in the background, allowing a luscious painterly pink to give shape to the hilly terrain.

Quilting the Armour, 1947

This painting portrays Kelly’s sister, Margaret, sewing soft blue cloth into the interior of her brother’s homemade armour. Always a poet, Nolan’s description of the work was both beautiful and poignant. He stated that Margaret’s task was done with ‘tenderness and love’ in attempt to protect her brother’s ‘precious head’. Against a green and gold landscape the cerulean blue of the helmet interior draws the viewer’s eye as a well, or sea, or sapphire. Even without Kelly’s head within it, it is the focus of our attention.

Ned Kelly, 1946

Since this series was painted, this rendering has become synonymous with Ned Kelly, the 19th-century bushranger. There is a sense of irrationality in this image of the helmet without a human head. Yet it is so potent, one hardly notices. In this image, Nolan brings together the two key aspects of the series: Kelly as dramatic personae on the run from the police and the ambient landscape as a vital participant. Nolan said of this painting: ‘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.’

The Defence of Aaron Sherritt, 1946

The irony of the title is given away by the comical nature of the police and Mrs Sherritt on the floor and the bald policeman lying on the bed. Mr Sherritt, once a member of the Kelly gang who turned police informant, is outside. Nolan learned from Mrs Sherritt’s accounts of the time that the police were in the room in this position when Dan Kelly (Ned’s brother) entered. The incumbents had heard the shot that killed Aaron Sherritt and were too fearful to exit. Nolan’s wry humour renders the scene like a farce or pantomime.

Stringybark Creek, 1947

Sergeant Kennedy, who had been chasing the Kelly gang, has been fatally wounded. Kelly noted that he could not let him die a slow death at the mercy of the elements, so intended to finish the deed. Nolan felt that at such dramatic life and death moments, it is as if everything is heightened and the world becomes quite eerily still. Sergeant Kennedy is wide-eyed; Ned Kelly and his gang look glazed and disconnected, aware that all is far from right with the world. Two guns cross one another, amplifying the idea of the two ‘warring’ factions of police and the Kelly gang.

Township, 1947

Township portrays the town of Mansfield, the base for police operations relating to the Kelly gang, and the site to which policemen murdered by the Kellys were brought to rest and later memorialised. In speaking about the painting, Nolan said he was ‘intrigued by violence in peaceful settings.’ Nolan’s painting catches the town in a strange equilibrium: landscape and horizon are very tenuously balanced, while the painting’s mottled palette suggests a restless energy or a storm encroaching – a violent power only subtly contained.

The Slip, 1947

As a line of policemen quietly ascends a muddy incline, a packhorse loses its footing from a cliff face and falls. Nolan captures the moment of the fall – the horse suspended upside down in mid-air forever; a metaphor perhaps of hapless victims of conflict. It is a symbolic gesture that marks a turning point in the story. Now we know that the fate of Ned Kelly and his gang is sealed. The end is nigh. Nolan’s palette in the background landscape and sky is soft, luminous and atmospheric. We are literally in a phase of suspended animation, waiting with forlorn anticipation.

Burning at Glenrowan, 1946

The various protagonists come together on the same stage. A pair with Siege at Glenrowan, this painting depicts the final showdown when the police finally catch up with Ned Kelly. He is shot in the legs while gang members, Dan Kelly and Steve Hart, succumb to the fire. Burnt from the waist down they are depicted next to their alter egos, the signature Ned Kelly helmet and armour; as though in death, as in life, their identities have merged. In the brilliantly abstracted image on the left, Nolan depicts Ned Kelly himself towering above the scene.

The Trial, 1947

Nolan locates the final scenario of the drama within a courtroom to illuminate the moment when Judge Redmond Barry sentences Ned Kelly to death. Kelly takes on a defensive pose with his arms crossed. His famous phrase ‘Such is life’ is suggested here in the combination of defiance and resignation. The dynamic, checked red and white patterned floor recalls a board game, the outcome of which remains endlessly and hotly contested. Despite large demonstrations and public petitions to save Kelly, he was sentenced to hang on 11 November 1880. Yet his legend would continue to grow.