Bert And Ned

Albert Tucker and Sidney Nolan were friends and rivals but never antagonists for the whole of their working lives as artists. Together they participated in the struggle to establish modern art in Australia in the 1940s. From the outset they were regarded as major artists possessed of a powerful and original vision. Yet by a quirk of fate they rarely lived in the same city or the same continent after 1947. Each deeply valued the friendship, however, and strove to preserve it through this remarkable correspondence. Covering a period of more than thirty years, the letters throw refreshing new light on their expatriate years in the 1950s and mark their changing and changeable attitude to Australia, both as place and culture. Patrick McCaughey, art critic and historian, who knew both artists, has written an introduction that explores the various themes running through these letters and annotated them so that the reader can feel and hear the voices of these vivid and lively correspondents.