A green card folder titled 'Kelly' on the upper cover containing 113 sketches and notes for Ned Kelly, approximately 28 relating to sets, props and dramatis personae for Douglas Stewart's Ned Kelly, Italy, 1956

'Originally performed as a radio play in 1942, Stewart's play was given a stage production in Sydney in 1956 (Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust). By this time Nolan's Kelly paintings were well known, and Nolan was commissioned to proiduce set designs from London.' (A. Sayers, Sidney Nolan The Ned Kelly Story (MoMA exhibition catalogue), New York, 1994, p.25). The sketches mostly made in Italy while at the British School in Rome in May-June 1956, with the Kelly iconography enriched by Nolan's daily observations of Roman scenery and statuary. The folder of sketches and notes reminiscent of Nolan's working methods in his student years ('His method of working at this time was almost secretive. The folio he always carried, and rarely opened in company, contained neatly cut sheets of tissue-paper filled with abstract drawings, essays and short esoteric poems written in an incredibly neat and disciplined script.' ('His Student Years by John Sinclair', Art and Australia (Nolan Issue), Volume 5, Number 2, September 1967, p.436)