Focus on this artwork and explain the Background.
Born in the inner-Melbourne working class suburb of Carlton on 22 April 1917, Nolan grew up in bayside St Kilda, Melbourne's main leisure precinct. His childhood was spent playing in and around Luna Park, St Kilda Pier and along nearby beaches, jetties and sea baths; memories of this period played an inspirational role in the imagery of Nolan's early paintings, including the Bathers series which he started in 1942. Nolan also had many sporting interests growing up, in particular swimming, cycling, cricket and Australian rules football. He regularly went on weekend trips to the outer at the St Kilda Cricket Ground to barrack for his team, the St Kilda Football Club.In the mid-1940s, when Nolan was painting boyhood recollections of St Kilda and "heroic" figures such as bushranger Ned Kelly, he decided to paint Footballer, an "emblematic portrait of the sports-warrior". The work was painted in the dining room at Heide, the Templestowe home of art patrons John and Sunday Reed, on 24 August 1946. In his journal, Nolan writes: "Finished my painting of a footballer this morning and called Jim [the gardener at Heide] to have a look at it. He said it looked quite real, almost as if you were there, so it at least passed the critical eye of a specialist." Its completion date falls in the middle of Nolan's iconic first series of 27 Ned Kelly works, all but one painted in the Heide dining room. Together with the Kelly series, Footballer has been interpreted as a "veiled self-portrait"—both men, like the artist, stand outside society in a "space no longer governed by everyday rules."The painting was first exhibited at the Melbourne branch of the Contemporary Art Society in 1946, and later shown in retrospective exhibitions throughout the 1960s and 70s with the title Fullback, St Kilda, which led to speculation that the footballer is based on Test cricketer and St Kilda fullback Keith "Nugget" Miller, of whom Nolan was a great fan. Nolan later revealed in an interview that St Kilda's Bill Mohr is the subject, saying "I lived in St Kilda and I went to a lot of matches there and they had a fullback called Billy Mohr and in 1946, after coming out of the army and casting back for memories to paint, I decided to paint him."
cricket Keith "Nugget" Miller Carlton 1946 Cricket Australia bushranger St Kilda St Kilda Cricket Ground Ned Kelly Melbourne Luna Park John St Kilda Pier St Kilda Football Club Sunday Reed Heide Australian rules football Bill Mohr Templestowe