Ned Kelly rides again as Art Gallery of NSW flags leaner 2026 program

2 months ago 13

Thirty-three years after his death, Sidney Nolan will be the subject of a major show at the Art Gallery of NSW next year, the announcement flagging a leaner 2026 exhibition program at the landmark cultural institution.

Renowned for his depictions of the tragic explorers Burke and Wills and the bushranger Ned Kelly, the late artist will be celebrated in Nolan: Origins, the gallery’s first survey of the artist in almost two decades.

Nolan is widely credited with redefining the “Australian identity” through his epic portrayals of the outback and the national psyche.

“Sidney Nolan authored one of the most distinctive and inventive bodies of work of any modernist artist in Australia,” Art Gallery of NSW senior curator of Australian art Denise Mimmocchi said. “His works remain enduringly fascinating, enigmatic and yet continually open to new interpretations.”

Nolan: Origins explores how the artist interrogated the idea of Australia, through its myths, histories, people and creatures. The exhibition is to be structured around the places that Nolan painted and which inspired his experimentation, including Heide, Heidelberg, the Wimmera, Fraser Island, north-eastern Victoria, outback Queensland and NSW, and Central Australia.

The Nolan summer show will be the centrepiece of a pared-back program for the gallery. The AGNSW has scheduled 12 shows for 2026 – down from 15 this year – and extended their duration to reduce costs. The gallery’s annual solo monograph show, which this year focused on the life and work of Janet Dawson, has been dropped for 2026.

“As planned, the exhibition schedule for 2026 has been adjusted to extend the duration of some exhibitions, giving visitors more time to experience each show, while aligning with the practices of other leading global art museums,” a gallery spokesperson said.

“Our rich and exciting exhibition program continues to feature two major winter exhibitions and two major summer exhibitions, as it has since 2024,” a spokesperson said. “We’ve paused the annual Australian artist monograph exhibition to ensure we can deliver a program that’s achievable within our new organisational structure.”

The 2026 season opens with Super Nature, a deep dive into the gallery’s permanent collection that explores human immersion in the natural world. This will be followed by Avatar: Forms of Vishnu, the gallery’s winter blockbuster, showcasing South Asian art that features the Hindu deity in his many guises, including the boar-headed Varaha and the man-lion Narasimha.

An international “blockbuster” to run alongside Nolan: Origins next summer is to be announced in the new year.

The gallery’s restrained program follows a turbulent year in which it axed 44 roles to address a $7.5 million budget shortfall.

Troy Wright, assistant general secretary of the Public Service Association, told parliament this month that a reduced 2026 schedule was a tacit admission the cutbacks would “impact the level of exhibitions and in turn … the level of visitation”.

“I cannot see the art gallery being as successful as it has been with this number of staff leaving,” Wright said. “They simply won’t have the capacity.”

Despite the staff cutbacks, director Maud Page insisted the gallery would operate “business as usual”. However, the NSW opposition has expressed growing concern for the institution, noting that NSW Treasury has yet to finalise the gallery’s budgetary framework for the next four years.

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