'I was fascinated by the objectivity of the arid endless land. The land stated its terms and left you to your own adjustment. Only the Aborigines were relaxed in an environment that rejected the white man ... Someone has called The Centre a beautiful country to look at but terrible to touch. It's true. The distances, colour, and light of The Centre are a challenge to any artist, and the rules of European painting don't seem to apply out there ... when I started to paint, I felt I was striving for something completely new. Now I feel this is presumption on my part. Today I realised I'm a worker in a very old craft. I feel that my main job is to relate a description of a new environment to an old tradition ...' (Sidney Nolan quoted in R. McKie, 'Strange Chick from an Irish hatching', Daily Telegraph, 10 June 1950 in N. Underhill (ed.) Nolan on Nolan: Sidney Nolan in his own words, Melbourne, 2007, p.295)

Nolan returned to the outback from August to October 1968, while working on a documentary with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.