Aboriginal Artworks in current stockroom

(alphabetically by artist surname)

A collection of fine ceremonial poles

Various Artists ()

A collection of fine ceremonial poles

earth pigments on hollow stringybark log

168 x 24cm (left), 235 x 15cm (centre), 196 x 15cm (right)

Provenance

DJIRRIRRA WUNUNGMURRA (b. 1968)

Yukuwa 729-19

(left)

CAROLINE DATJULUMA GUYULA (b. 1973)

Milŋiyawuy 7582-21

(centre)

JOCELYN YIMULA MUNUŊGURR (b. 1974)

Djapu 7759-21

(right)

Enquire

Prime Minister Gough Whitlam Pours Soil Into Hand Of Traditional Land Owner (Gurindji) Vincent Lingiari (Wattle Creek), Northern Territory

Category: Aboriginal Australian Large Scale Works

Prime Minister Gough Whitlam Pours Soil Into Hand Of Traditional Land Owner (Gurindji) Vincent Lingiari (Wattle Creek), Northern Territory

Mervyn Bishop (1945)

Prime Minister Gough Whitlam Pours Soil Into Hand Of Traditional Land Owner (Gurindji) Vincent Lingiari (Wattle Creek), Northern Territory1975

digital c-type photograph

signed, dated and titled in ink below and verso

120 x 120cm

Enquire

Larrakitj

Category: Aboriginal Sculpture

Yinimala Gumana ()

Larrakitj

H: 231cm

Provenance

Baku-Larrnggay Mulka, NT

Enquire

Wanjina

Category: Aboriginal Women

Lily Karadada (b.c. 1921)

Wanjinac. 1982

natural earth pigments on bark

42 x 36.5cm

Enquire

Ceremony

Category: Aboriginal Mixed Media Painting

David Daymirringu Malangi (1927-1999)

Ceremony1968

ochre on bark

69 x 45cm

Provenance

Aboriginal and South Pacific Gallery, Surry Hills, exhibited 1995; Private collection, Sydney

Essay

Malangi’s bold style of painting was distinctive from his contemporaries. He used thick white lines, large areas of black, chocolate brown ochre and generous amounts of rarrk (crosshatching). He began bark painting as a young man, taught by his father and uncle to paint on bodies for ceremonies, on hollow logs for burials and later on stringybark. He was taught to paint the story of his creation ancestor, Gurrumurringu, and the story of the Djangkawu sisters. His style influenced several other central Arnhem Land painters.

Enquire

Turtle Hunt

Category: Aboriginal

Nandabitta Maminyamandja (1911- 1981)

Turtle Huntc. 1970

natural earth pigments on bark

inscribed with artist's name verso

65 x 39cm

Enquire

Parwalla

Category: Aboriginal Large Scale Works Painting Women

Elizabeth Nyumi Nungurrayi (b. 1947)

Parwalla2008

synthetic polymer paint on linen

inscribed verso: artist's name, size and Warlayirti Artists cat. 134/08

180 x 120cm

Provenance

Warlayirti Artists, Balgo Hills;

Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne;

Private collection, Melbourne;

Deutscher and Hackett, Part 2: Important Aboriginal Art, Melbourne 26 November 2014, Lot 104;

Private collection, Sydney

Essay

This painting depicts Elizabeth Nyumi’s father’s country, Parwalla. It is a large area that fills with water after the wet season and consequently produces an abundance of bush foods. The painting shows a variety of native foods including bush raisin, bush tomato and seeds. Women, shown as U shapes, with their digging sticks and coolamons gathering the foods, are also depicted.

Parwalla is a characteristic example of the work of Nyumi, one of the most-renowned, contemporary female Aboriginal artists. In her maturity as a painter Nyumi initially worked with a thick brush, covering the canvas in emanating lines in muted tones. The white, so pleasing and prevalent in her work, represent spinifex grass. She is an active member in the Balgo community, being a strong law and culture woman.

In 2004 Nyumi was selected for inclusion in the Biennale of Sydney. Her works are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin; the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Artbank, Sydney; the Laverty Collection, Sydney; and the Holmes à Court Collection, Perth.

Enquire

Canning Stock Route, Long Long Way

Category: Aboriginal Modern Painting

Rover Thomas (1926 - 1998)

Canning Stock Route, Long Long Way1993

ochres on canvas

79.5 x 99.5cm

Essay

One of the first two Indigenous artists to represent Australia at the 1990 Venice Biennale, Rover Thomas’ works sparked a greater appreciation of Aboriginal art, both nationally and internationally.

A desert man, the story of his life is interwoven with that of the Canning Stock Route. Thomas was born in the 1920s and raised in the Country around its middle stretches. At an early age he was picked up by a drover, Wally Dowling, and taken north to Billiluna and the Kimberley. He became a stockman himself, and eventually married and settled at Turkey Creek. There, in the 1970s, he pioneered the East Kimberley school of ochre painting on canvas.

Enquire

Mallee Fowl Story

Category: Aboriginal Painting

Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri (c. 1926 - 1998)

Mallee Fowl Story

ochres on canvas

102 x 52cm

Provenance

Sotheby’s Australia, Important Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, 24/07/2007, Lot No. 132

Private collection, Sydney

Enquire

Man at Ilpitirri

Category: Aboriginal Modern Painting

Billy Stockman Tjapljarri (1927 - 2015)

Man at Ilpitirri1975

Acrylic on canvas

171 x 201

Enquire

Goanna Story

Category: Aboriginal Modern Painting

Charlie Tararu Tjungarrayi ()

Goanna Story1972

synthetic polymer paint and natural earth pigments on composition board

Provenance

Sotheby’s 20 July 2009, Lot 63

Enquire

Pukamani Pole

Category: Aboriginal Sculpture

Bede Tungutalum (b.1952)

Pukamani Pole

natural earth pigments on ironwood

height: 174 cm

Enquire

Selection of ceremonial poles

Category: Aboriginal Sculpture

Djirrirra Wunungmurra (b. 1968)

Selection of ceremonial poles

Essay

(left)

Yukuwa 3142-17

earth pigments on stringybark hollow pole

232 x 28cm

(centre)

Yukuwa 6499-18

earth pigments on stringybark hollow pole

267cm

SOLD

(right)

Bukyu (Larrakitj) 3047-19

earth pigments on stringybark hollow pole

256cm

SOLD

Enquire

Kunapipi Ceremony

Category: Aboriginal Sculpture Traditional

Yirawala (1897-1976)

Kunapipi Ceremonyc. 1965

ochre on bark

71 x 25cm

Provenance

Purchased from Sandra Holmes, Collection of Leo Kelly, Sydney; Sotheby’s June 2000, Lot 284

Essay

One of the most celebrated Australian Aboriginal artists of the twentieth century,Yirawala was a seminal figure in the contemporary bark painting movement. He was a man of high ritual authority who worked tirelessly to communicate the value of his culture to outside audiences through his art. Yirawala was the most influential of the artists in the Croker Island ‘school’ of bark painting in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a Kuninjkuritual leader with access to a vast amount of religious iconography, whose bark paintings featured the shimmering rarrk (cross-hatching) patterns of the Mardayin ceremony. With their origins in ceremonial body painting, rarrk designs are associated with the power of the Ancestor beings. Yirawala’s style of painting, which included these designs to dazzling effect, influenced many of the best-known bark painters working today.