A conventional portrait — a seated half-figure painted from life — which is disrupted by the subject’s race. In mid-twentieth-century Australia, Indigenous people had rarely figured in a genre that confirmed the status of ‘elder statesman’ upon its (mainly male) subjects. William Dargie’s Portrait of Albert Namatjira 1956 has subsequently become the most identifiable image…
William Dargie’s iconic image of Albert Namatjira has become the most identifiable image of the artist, and Ben Quilty and Vincent Namatjira have each been inspired to incorporate this original into their versions. Ben Quilty’s painting Albert 2004 features two identifiable Australian identities placed together, Namatjira, the pioneer of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, and the…
Continue reading » “Albert Namatjira, an Australian identity”
‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9) features a diversity of indigenous voices — the largest contingent in the Triennial’s history — who share a common experience of dislocation through European settler occupation. Brisbane-based Indigenous artist Ryan Presley looks at how the practices of five of these artists engage with the legacy of…
Continue reading » “Beacons of hope: 5 indigenous voices in APT9”
Albert Namatjira occupies a significant place within Australian art history, being the first widely recognised Indigenous artist. His work Western MacDonnells c.1945 was the first by an Aboriginal person to enter the QAGOMA Collection in 1947. The Hermannsburg School art movement that began at the Lutheran mission of Hermannsburg in Central Australia in the 1930s,…
This work by Vincent Namatjira, a member of one of Australia’s most well-known artistic families, can be displayed beside the painting that inspired it, and will enrich the ongoing importance of its famous subject. Vincent Namatjira is one of the leading lights of the emerging generation of artists from remote central Australia. Namatjira is a…