Albert Namatjira was a member of the Aranda people of Central Australia (now referred to as the Western Aranda or Arrernte language group). Following the success of his first solo exhibition in Melbourne in 1938, Namatjira became increasingly famous, with popular reproductions of his works being hung in countless Australian homes. The first prominent Indigenous artist to achieve household recognition in a modern idiom, Namatjira subsequently became a tragic figure set against the background of assimilation debates and entangled aesthetic prejudices of the time. His art became virtually ignored by the mainstream of the Australian art world. This book, especially commissioned by the Gordon Darling Foundation and the National Gallery for the centenary of Namatjira's birth, redresses this neglect.
Battarbee and Namatjira is the biography of two artists Rex Battarbee and Albert Namatjira, one white Australian from Warrnambool in Victoria, the other Aboriginal, of the Arrernte people, from the Hermannsburg Mission south of Alice Springs. From their first encounters in the early 1930s, when Battarbee introduced Namatjira to the techniques of water-colour painting, through the period of Namatjira’s popularity as a painter, to the tragic circumstances leading to his death in 1959, their close relationship was to have a decisive impact on Australian art. This biography, illustrated with photographs, makes extensive use of Battarbee’s diaries for the first time, to throw new light on Namatjira’s life, and to bring Battarbee, who has been largely ignored by biographers, back into focus. Some of its findings will be controversial. By moving between the artists and their backgrounds, and looking closely at the nature of their friendship, Edmond is able to portray the personal and social complexities the two men faced, while at the same time illuminating larger cultural themes – the treatment of the Arrernte and Indigenous people generally, the influence of the Lutheran church, the development of anthropology, and the evolution of Australian art.
A comprehensive survey of watercolours by the Aranda (Arrernte) artists of central Australia P a school of painting founded by Albert Namatjira. Twelve expert contributors (anthropologists, historians, art critics and collectors) review the history and stylistic development of this art. This book was prepared with the full co-operation of the Aboriginal artists and communities concerned, and includes colour reproductions of their work, biographical details, an index and a bibliography. Published to coincide with the national exhibition which opened in Adelaide in November.
Age range 6 to 12 Award-winning artist Vincent Namatjira tells the life story of his great-grandfather, Albert Namatjira, one of Australia's most iconic artists. Vincent's witty and moving paintings are accompanied by evocative text, which records the pivotal moments in Albert's life. In telling his great-grandfather's story, Vincent builds a compelling picture of the times and conditions in which Albert lived and worked, capturing his triumphs and tragedy against a backdrop of social change and historical injustices. This poignant children's book provides an important tool for discussion about Australia's art history, and a launching pad for exploration of the key moments in Australia's Aboriginal Rights movement. Albert Namatjira is a unique children's picture book of both artistic beauty and historical importance, and will appeal to children, art collectors and those looking for a special gift. The artwork in this book is part of a body of work called 'Albert's Story' that was acquired by QAGOMA - Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art. 'In his picture book biography Albert Namatjira, Vincent Namatjira paints a stoic and quietly devastating portrait of his great-grandfather Albert, one of the most iconic figures in Australian painting...There is a wonderful tension in Vincent Namatjira's paintings; his neutral and non-judgemental eye for his subjects lends itself beautifully to Albert's story, bold marks constructing understated tableaus, belying a deep well of emotion. As a picture book biography, it is startlingly unique to look at and, notably, it makes no attempt to emulate any part of Albert Namatjira's aesthetic in the telling. On opposing pages, the text is sparse, its simplicity rendering the arc of Albert's life with unsentimental clarity. This is a wonderful example of the picture book form's unique gift for dramatic understatement, of its ability to cut to the lean truth of a matter. Albert Namatjira is simply a triumph of painting, of biography, of history, and of tribute. Magnificent.' -- Phil Lesnie, Books+Publishing Teachers' notes available here
Albert Namatjira was a man of firsts: the first successful indigenous artist and the first indigenous man to be made an Australian citizen. At the height of his fame in the 1950s Albert Namatjira's shows sold out within minutes. If you didn't own one of his paintings you probably had a print in your lounge room. He also supported over six hundred members of his community, lost two of his ten children to malnutrition, was forbidden to own land, imprisoned for having a drink with his friends, and died a broken man. Namatjira is a whole-hearted tribute to a great man.
The German missionary Carl Strehlow (1871-1922) had a deep ethnographic interest in Aboriginal Australian cosmology and social life which he documented in his 7 volume work Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral-Australien that remains unpublished in English. In 1913, Marcel Mauss called his collection of sacred songs and myths, an Australian Rig Veda. This immensely rich corpus, based on a lifetime on the central Australian frontier, is barely known in the English-speaking world and is the last great body of early Australian ethnography that has not yet been built into the world of Australian anthropology and its intellectual history. The German psychological and hermeneutic traditions of anthropology that developed outside of a British-Australian intellectual world were alternatives to 19th century British scientism. The intellectual roots of early German anthropology reached back to Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), the founder of German historical particularism, who rejected the concept of race as well as the French dogma of the uniform development of civilisation. Instead he recognised unique sets of values transmitted through history and maintained that cultures had to be viewed in terms of their own development and purpose. Thus, humanity was made up of a great diversity of ways of life, language being one of its main manifestations. It is this tradition that led to a concept of cultures in the plural.
Journey to Horseshoe Bend was first published in 1969 and has been out of print for almost forty years. An Australian literary classic, it was written by TGH (Ted) Strehlow, author of the monumental Songs of Central Australia. It describes the final days of his father, Pastor Carl Strehlow, head of the Lutheran mission at Hermannsburg, as they travel, with Aboriginal companions, in extreme heat, along the dry riverbed of the Finke River, to the nearest railhead in search of medical assistance. They never reach help: the journey ends at Horseshoe Bend, with Pastor Strehlow’s death. Ted Strehlow grew up with Aborigines on the mission, and his knowledge of their customs and stories was unique. The book combines this knowledge, with a detailed awareness of the landscape and its sacred places, the battles that have been fought there, the lonely outposts of white settlement, and of the Biblical resonances of their own journey through this desert setting.
