Girl, 1941

Sidney Nolan, Girl, 1941,

Amelda Langslow is Sidney Nolan’s daughter.

My family love this painting my father, Sidney, painted when he was twenty-four. It is of my mother, Elizabeth, when she was pregnant.
Entitled ‘Girl,’ it is dated 1941 – the year of my birth.

It is a deceptively simple, graphic and monochromatic image of pregnancy that draws your eye to the heart. As my young parents separated shortly after I was born, perhaps the grey palette represents pain but luckily the little heart prevailed. Although it was some years before my father and I were able to be together, we remained close until his death in 1992.

I like to think that this painting, undistracted by detail, represents an almost ultrasound image of our origins.