As an emerging artist in the early 1940s, Sidney Nolan returned to his childhood haunts of St Kilda and began to understand how the whirl of popular culture experience and imagery could connect to his ideas for a new form of contemporary art practice.

“I was thinking about the ride we had in the merry go round at St Kilda with the lovely Disney blue lights and funny pink statues and I remembered quite suddenly that all around the outside of the merry go round there have always been old fashioned paintings of tiger hunts, elephants and throwing lassoes in South America.” Sidney Nolan Letter to Sunday Reed, March 29th, 1943, Nhill.

Dr Chris McAuliffe is the Sir William Dobell Chair and Head, Centre for Art History & Art Theory School of Art and Design at the Australian National University.