Sidney Nolan’s adventures in paint— an analytical study of the artist’s use of commercial paints in the 1940s and ’50s

Micro-Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (μ-FTIR) and portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) was undertaken on 11 paintings by Sidney Nolan (1917–1992) in order to identify paint type. Alkyd (oil-modified polyester resin) was identified on two 1942 paintings and nitrocellulose paint was detected on several works from 1941. These early synthetic paint types have not previously been noted on paintings by Nolan. The oil identified on paintings dated after January 1943 demonstrates good correspondence with the Ripolin brand of enamel paint when compared with the results of a previous analytical study of cans from Nolan’s own studio. The analytical results provide new insight into Nolan’s unusual use of commercial gloss paint in the Second World War period. This study also clarifies the brand names and terminology used in the 1940s to 1950s to describe the different types of commercial paints and offers a model for the cataloguing of Nolan’s paintings.