Seeing the Centre

The Art of Albert Namatjira 1902–1959

Exhibition
5 Oct 2002 – 19 Jan 2003
Landscape watercolour painting of Australian country with large gum tree on the left

Albert Namatjira (Western Arrarnta people), not titled landscape, 1955, gift of Thomas William and Pamela Joyce (Joy) Falconer 1987 © Namatjira Legacy Trust/ Copyright Agency

About

Seeing the Centre reassesses the life and art of Western Aranda (Arrernte) artist, Albert Namatjira (1902–1959). For all his success, Namatjira's achievements were dismissed as purely derivative by many art commentators. He is now seen to have reworked the models of the European watercolour tradition to express a personal vision. His subjects were not chosen for their beauty in European terms, but as ancestral landscapes though which he expressed his relationship with the country to which he was spiritually bound. His images are of a land unshaped by evidence of European settlement.

Albert Namatjira is Australia’s first popularly known Aboriginal artist and the landscape paintings he produced have become iconic images synonymous with the Australian outback. His images are of a land created in the Dreaming, untamed by the pastoral industry and by other evidence of European settlement. This is the first comprehensive survey of his work in celebration of the centenary of his birth on 28 July 2002.

Curator: Roger Butler, Senior Curator Australian Prints, Drawings and Watercolours and Alison French, Darling Author Fellow, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University

The content from this page is sourced from: French, Alison. Seeing the Centre : The Art of Albert Namatjira, 1902-1959. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2002.

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