In 1952, Sidney Nolan was commissioned by The Courier-Mail to photograph one of the worst droughts in Queensland’s history. Taken on and around the Birdsville Track, the photographs record his impressions of the drought and its traumatic effects. Nolan’s images were deemed too graphic to be printed in the newspaper, and the drawings he adapted from them were published instead. These two photographs are part of an edition printed posthumously. 

Not merely a documentary record, these photographs are an artistic response to the devastation of drought. In their distorted forms, the desiccated carcasses take on a macabre sculptural beauty. These images are of major significance to Queensland and its history and record the strong influence that travel in the state had on Nolan early in his career. The artist later used many of these images as inspiration for his iconic paintings of Australia’s interior.