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Albert Namatjira
Launch of The Albert Namatjira Collection
Some Major Brushstrokes of Life
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| Albert Namatjira |
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 Albert Namatjira 1902-1959
Ghost Gum scene near Gosse Range
Collection: Art Gallery of Western Australia
c Albert Namatjira
Licensed to VISCOPY Sydney 2001 |
Albert Namatjira was initiated as a young man into the sacred tribal ways, and was taught the tribal customs and ancient laws of the Western Aranda.
He greatly respected his tribal laws, and seldom travelled far from his ancestral home.
The majority of his watercolour works were landscapes of areas that he had known throughout his life, for they fell within the tribal land of the Western Aranda
His art brought him fame and a degree of wealth, but little freedom.
Throughout his life he never neglected his tribal responsibilities, and he never neglected his family or his people, sharing the little that he made from the sales of his art, with his family and friends.
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| Launch of The Albert Namatjira Collection |
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Sir William Dargie now 90 will speak at the official launch of The Albert Namatjira Collection with the Hon. Philip Ruddock MP, Federal Minister for Reconciliation and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, and Mr Geoff Clark, Chairman of ATSIC at the Melbourne Museum 12.00 Noon Saturday 27 October 2001.
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| Some Major Brushstrokes of Life |
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1936: In the winter of 1936, Rex Battarbee returned and provided Albert Namatjira with two months watercolour tuition while on a journey into the heart of the tribal land of the Western Aranda.
Albert Namatjira offered Battarbee his services as 'camel boy in return for painting lessons'.
1957: Albert and his wife, Rubina were awarded full Australian Citizenship. 'He could now vote, drink in hotels, take bottled beer home, build a house anywhere he wanted, and demand the basic wage if he ever worked for an employer.
But the anomaly existed that his children were still considered wards of the State and therefore if he wanted to build a house in Alice Springs, his children could not legally stay with him overnight.'
Albert Namatjira died at the Alice Springs Hospital on August 8, 1959 and was buried the next day in the Alice Springs Cemetery. His old friend, Pastor Albrecht conducted the service.
A 20 foot high cairn of natural stone was later erected near the Hermannsburg Mission with a plaque which reads 'In Memory of Albert Namatjira 1902-1959. This is the Landscape which inspired the Artist
Some Major Brushstrokes of Life »
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| Sir William Dargie's Archibald Prize Winning Portrait |
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The 1956 portrait of Albert Namatjira by artist Sir William Dargie, which won the Archibald Prize, captures the great strength and dignity of the artist three years before he died.
Andrew Mackenzie, Art Historian, Albert Namatjira's Biographer and Curator of In the Artsist's Footsteps describes Namatjira as a loving father and husband, proud, ambitous, resourceful and intelligent.
As an artist he was innately skilful being able to absord the basics of European water colour painting after only two months tuition by Rex Batterbee.
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