Behind The Scenes Evening at Sidney Nolan Trust

Join us for a behind-the-scenes evening with two of the world’s leading experts on Sir Sidney Nolan for an up-close exploration of selected artworks from the Sidney Nolan Trust collection.

Virginia Rigney is Senior Curator at Canberra Museum + Gallery looking after Nolan’s major gift of works to the Australian people and curating regular exhibition and engagement programmes for this collection.

Paula Dredge was painting conservator for over 30 years at the Art Gallery of NSW. Now at the University of Melbourne, she is the author of The Artist’s Materials: Sidney Nolan (2020), published by the Getty Conservation Institute, and conserved Nolan’s studio at The Rodd for the 2017 centenary of his death.

Also joining us is Paula’s current collaborator Dr Richard Mulholland.
Richard is a paper conservator and technical art historian specialising in twentieth-century artists’ materials. He spent a decade at the V&A, with previous posts at Tate and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Conservation of Fine Art and Director of University Collections at Northumbria University.

As well as sharing their insights and responses to some Nolan works they have chosen, they will discuss their ongoing fascination with Australia’s most famous modern artist and their current research, which is revealing new dimensions of his life and practice.