Albert Namatjira

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(b nr Hermannsburg Mission Station [then South Australia; from 1911 in the Northern Territory], 28 July 1902; d Alice Springs, 8 Aug 1959). Aboriginal draughtsman and watercolourist. He was of the Aranda (Arunta) people. He was educated by Lutheran missionaries and worked as a camel driver and stockman in central Australia. Already a practised draughtsman, he began painting in 1934 when Lutheran Pastor Albrecht gave him watercolours, following a visit to the region by Rex Battarbee (1893-1973) and John Gardner (1906-87), painters from Victoria. Battarbee returned in 1936, employed Namatjira as guide for a painting expedition and taught him watercolour techniques. At a Lutheran conference in South Australia the following year Pastor Albrecht sold works by Namatjira, and Battarbee included others in his exhibition in Adelaide. Namatjira had his first solo exhibitions in Melbourne in 1938 and Adelaide in 1939.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Albert Namatjira (1902-1959) was the first Australian Aboriginal artist to receive national acclaim from the white community.

Albert Namatjira was born in 1902 in the Central Australian desert, which is one of the harshest environments in the world. His parents were Namatjira and Ljukuta of the Aranda people, and in accordance with their customs the child would normally remain unnamed until old enough to appreciate the significance of his given names and to be initiated into the group's complex social structure.

Australia had been invaded by Europeans little more than a century before Namatjira's birth, and the story of that occupation was similar throughout the country. The indigenous peoples, whose history spanned at least 40,000 years, were seen as a nuisance and were slaughtered in great numbers or else gathered and moved from their hunting grounds, where sheep and cattle soon replaced the native game. The bases of Aboriginal economic, social, and cultural life were almost destroyed, and, like many others, Namatjira and Ljukuta became part of a settled community - in their case at the Lutheran mission at Hermannsburg near Alice Springs. The young couple received religious instruction and were baptized on Christmas Eve 1905. Accepting Christian customs, they forsook their tribal names for "Christian" ones. Namatjira became Jonathan, Ljukuta became Emelia, and their son was baptized Albert. At the mission Aboriginal children were given only one name and "Namatjira," his father's totemic name, meaning "Flying White Ant," was dropped for many years.

Finding a Vocation

Though superficially Aboriginal people complied with the demands of the Europeans, traditional practices were continued more-or-less covertly, and at the age of 13 Albert disappeared, not be seen at the mission again for months. He was taken by the elders of his tribal group to distant ceremonial grounds, where he received instruction and was initiated into manhood. When he was 18 he disappeared again, but this time to elope with Ilkalita, an attractive, intelligent young woman forbidden to him on the grounds of their traditional kinship incompatability. They stayed away for three years until word reached them that they had been forgiven, and, with their three children, they were able to return to the mission, where Ilkalita was baptized and renamed Rubina and their children were named Enos, Oscar, and Maisie. Namatjira found work with an Afghan camel team as a shearer, stockman, carpenter, and handyman and as a carver of Aboriginal souvenirs.

In 1934 Namatjira saw an exhibition of water colors by visiting artists Rex Battarbee and John Gardner at the mission. The impact on him was immediate and lasting. He revealed later than it gave him a perception of his own country, for the first time, in terms of its visual beauty, color, light, and atmosphere. Previously he had understood the land in terms of its mythology and as a source of economic survival. He watched Battarbee at work and determined that he, too, would paint in that manner. The people of the Central Australian desert had been artists from time immemorial, and art had always been an integral part of their ceremonial life. Their songs and dances of the corroboree, storytelling, body ornamentation, rock carvings, and abstract ground patterns were as significant to the desert people as were the great religious works of medieval times to Europeans. Traditional desert art was symbolic, and much of it sacred and secret, its meaning revealed on a graduated scale only to initiated men. It could not be reproduced without causing anger or possibly even death.

Having a reverence for the art forms of his people's mythology, Namatjira had no intention of reproducing them for commercial purposes. Battarbee's method and subject matter promised an alternative artistic outlet, and, as the artist had offered to give him lessons, Namatjira planned an itinerary for Battarbee's next visit which would take them by camel to the most beautiful places in the region. In 1936 the two had an eight-week painting tour.

With his power of concentration, his keen perception, and his fine craftsmanship, Namatjira was an adept pupil, and, at an exhibition of his own work in the following year, Battarbee showed three of Namatjira's paintings, which were well-received. This led, in 1938, to Namatjira's first one-man-show at Melbourne's Fine Art Gallery. These paintings were the first to bear the signature "Albert Namatjira," and within three days all were sold. Most critics were loud in their praise, but this was not unanimous. Some suggested that Namatjira was only of curiosity value and that his paintings were mere imitations of his teacher. This mixed reception became the pattern for later shows. His second exhibition, however, was another sell-out, and this time the Adelaide Art Gallery bought one, making it the first state gallery to buy a watercolor by an Aboriginal artist. A great future was forecast for Namatjira.

Success as Painter Is Mixed Blessing

World War II brought security investigations for all German people and organizations in Australia, including the Hermannsburg Mission. Because of his World War I service and his long association with Hermannsburg, Rex Battarbee was appointed as its security officer. Namatjira's paintings were selling as quickly as he could produce them to Australian and American servicemen stationed in Central Australia. Battarbee formed the Aranda Art Group to promote other Aranda artists, and he was chairman of an advisory group formed to help manage Namatjira's affairs. It was decided that in order to keep his standards (and prices) high, Namatjira should restrict his production to about 50 paintings a year.

His exposition of 1944 made Namatjira a national figure; he became the first Aboriginal person ever included in "Who's Who in Australia," and the first book about him appeared. The 1945 exhibition was his first in Sydney. It was rushed, and within minutes of the opening the entire collection was purchased. Buyers included American servicemen and representatives from American, British, and New Zealand galleries.

Reproductions of his work became popular and appeared on Christmas cards and calendars. He toured the capital cities; his portrait was hung in the Art Gallery of New South Wales; he met the Queen of England and other royalty - he was feted. In 1957 he was granted citizenship. Until then, like other Aboriginal people at that time, Namatjira had, in law, been a "ward of the state" denied the normal rights of a citizen.

The change in status gave him the legal right to drink alcohol but not to share it with other Aborigines. To an Aboriginal person this was unthinkable, as everything must be shared with kin. His camp became the scene of regular drunkenness and brawling, which climaxed in the death of a young woman. Namatjira was not involved in the brawl that resulted in the girl's death, but he was charged with supplying liquor to fellow Aborigines, which at that time was a criminal offense.

Namatjira was convicted and sentenced to six month's hard labor. An appeal, fought to the high court, reduced the sentence to three months, which Namatjira served, a bewildered and broken man. He gave up painting and died in 1959, within four months of his release.

A shocked nation fell into mourning, and an examination of the national conscience on its treatment of Aboriginal Australians followed. Institutionalized racism had kept most Aborigines from claiming a prominent place in the dominant society and had successfully cut down the first who had achieved it. Albert Namatjira is remembered as an artist of significance and as a person whose treatment highlighted the inequalities of Australian society, thus helping to pave the way towards citizenship rights for Aboriginal people.

Further Reading

C. P. Mountford's book The Art of Albert Namatjira (Melbourne, 1949) was one of the early books about this artist. It was based on a visit made by the author to Namatjira in his own country. After the artist's death a flood of articles and a number of books appeared. Notable among these were Joyce Batty's Namatjira … Wanderer Between Two Worlds (1963) and "Albert Namatjira, Feted and Forgotten," Origin (September 1969). Rex Battarbee kept a public silence on his former pupil for 12 years after Namatjira's death, but in an article in Walkabout in October 1971 entitled "Namatjira … The Man Behind the Myth" by Virginia Freeman, Battarbee revealed his perceptions. In the same year a book co-authored by Rex Battarbee and his wife Bernice, entitled Modern Aboriginal Painters (Sydney, Australia, 1971), was published. It dealt with the work of Albert Namatjira and the other artists of the Aranda Group. A more recent assessment of Namatjira's work was provided by P. McCaughey in an article entitled "Namatjira in His Own Landscape" which was published in The Age, a Melbourne newspaper, on July 11, 1984, after a retrospective exhibition of Namatjira's work opened the Araluen Arts Centre in Alice Springs.

Additional Sources

Albert Namatjira: the life and work of an Australian painter, South Melbourne: Macmillan, 1986.

Albert Namatjira, 1949 Alice Springs.

Albert Namatjira (28 July 1902 – 8 August 1959), born Elea Namatjira, was an Australian artist. He was a Western Arrernte man, an Indigenous Australian of the Western MacDonnell Ranges area. Albert Namatjira is perhaps Australia's best known Aboriginal painter, with his work forming one of the foundations of contemporary Indigenous Australian art.

He is best known for his watercolour Australian outback desert landscapes, a style which inspired the Hermannsburg School of Aboriginal art. While his work is the product of his life and experiences, his paintings are not in the highly symbolic style of traditional Aboriginal art; they are richly detailed depictions.

He is also notable for being the first Northern Territory Indigenous Australian to be freed from the restrictions of legislation that made Aborigines wards of the State.

Contents 1 Early life 2 The height of success 3 Artworks 4 Later life and demise 5 Legacy 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

Early life

Born at Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission, near Alice Springs in 1902, Namatjira was raised on the Hermannsburg Mission and baptised after his parents' adoption of Christianity. He was born as Elea, but once baptised, they changed his name to Albert. After a western style upbringing on the mission, at the age of 13, Namatjira returned to the bush for initiation and was exposed to traditional culture as a member of the Arrernte community (in which he was to eventually become an elder). He obtained the love and respect of his land that is seen in his works. After he returned, he married his wife Rubina at the age of 18. His wife, like his father's wife, was from the wrong "skin" group and he violated the law of his people by marrying outside the classificatory kinship system (see Australian Aboriginal kinship). In 1928 he was ostracised for several years in which he worked as a camel driver and saw much of Central Australia, which he was later to depict in his paintings.

Although doing a small amount of rough but non-traditional artwork in his youth, Namatjira was introduced to western style painting through an exhibition by two painters from Melbourne at his mission in 1934. One of these painters, Rex Battarbee, returned to the area in the winter of 1936 to paint the landscape and Namatjira acted as a guide to show him local scenic areas. In return Namatjira was shown how to paint with watercolours, a skill at which he quickly excelled.

The height of success

Central Australian Landscape 1950s

Namatjira started painting in a distinctly unique style. His landscapes normally highlighted both the rugged geological features of the land in the background, and the distinctive Australian flora in the foreground with very old, stately and majestic white gum trees surrounded by twisted scrub. His work had a high quality of illumination showing the gashes of the land and the twists in the trees. His colours were similar to the ochres that his ancestors had used to depict the same landscape, but his style was appreciated by Europeans because it met the aesthetics of western art.

In 1938 his first exhibition was held in Melbourne. Subsequent exhibitions in Sydney and Adelaide also sold out. For ten years Namatjira continued to paint, his works continuing to sell quickly and his popularity continuing to rise. Queen Elizabeth II became one of his more notable fans and he was awarded the Queen's Coronation Medal in 1953 and met her in Canberra in 1954. Not only did his own art become widely recognized, but a painting of him by William Dargie won the Archibald Prize in 1956. He became popular, critically acclaimed and wealthy. He, however, was always glad to return to the outback.

Artworks

Namatjira's artworks were colourful and varied depictions of the Australian landscape. One of his first landscapes from 1936, Central Australian Landscape, shows a land of rolling green hills. Another early work, Ajantzi Waterhole (1937), shows a close up view of a small waterhole, with Namatjira capturing the reflection in the water. The landscape becomes one of contrasting colours, a device that is often used by Western painters, with red hills and green trees in Red Bluff (1938). Central Australian Gorge (1940) shows detailed rendering of rocks and reflections in the water. In Flowering Shrubs Namatjira contrasts the blossoming flowers in the foreground with the more barren desert and cliffs in the background. Namatjira's love of trees was often described so that his paintings of trees were more portraits than landscapes, which is shown in the portrait of the often depicted ghost gum in Ghost Gum Glen Helen (c.1945-49). Namatjira's skills at colouring trees can be clearly seen in this portrait.

Namatjira was fully aware of his own talent, as was shown when he was describing another landscape painter to William Dargie.

"He does not know how to make the side of a tree which is in the light look the same colour as the side of the tree in shadow...I know how to do better."

Namatjira's skills kept increasing with experience as is shown in the highly photographic quality of Mt Hermannsburg (1957), painted only two years before he died.

Later life and demise

Namatjira on his way to Alice Springs.

Namatjira outside Government House, Sydney, circa 1947.

Due to his wealth, Namatjira soon found himself the subject of humbugging, a ritualised form of begging. Arrernte are expected to share everything they own, and as Namatjira's income grew, so did his extended family. At one time he was singlehandedly providing for over 600 people.^{[citation needed]} To ease the burden on his strained resources, Namatjira sought to lease a cattle station to benefit his extended family. Originally granted, the lease was subsequently rejected because the land was part of a returned servicemen's ballot, and also because he had no ancestral claim on the property. He then tried to build a house in Alice Springs, but was cheated in his land dealings. The land he was sold was on a flood plain and was unsuitable for building. The Minister for Territories, Paul Hasluck, offered him free land in a reserve on the outskirts of Alice Springs, but this was rejected, and Namatjira and his family took up residence in a squalid shanty at Morris Soak—a dry creek bed some distance from Alice Springs. Despite the fact that he was held as one of Australia's greatest artists, Namatjira was living in poverty. His plight became a media cause célèbre, resulting in a wave of public outrage.

In 1957 the government exempted Namatjira and his wife from the restrictive legislation that applied to Aborigines in the Northern Territory. This entitled them to vote, own land, build a house and buy alcohol. Although Albert and Rubina were legally allowed to drink alcohol, his Aboriginal family and friends were not. The nomadic Arrernte culture expected him to share everything he owned, even after they ceased being nomads. It was this contradiction that was to bring Namatjira into conflict with the law.

When an Aboriginal woman, Fay Iowa, was killed at Morris Soak, Namatjira was held responsible by Jim Lemaire, the Stipendiary Magistrate, for bringing alcohol into the camp. He was reprimanded at the coronial inquest. It was then against the law to supply alcohol to an Aboriginal person. Namatjira was charged with leaving a bottle of rum in a place, i.e. on a car seat, where a clan brother and fellow Hermannsburg artist Henoch Raberaba, could get access to it. He was sentenced to six months in prison for supplying an Aboriginal with liquor. After a public uproar, Hasluck intervened and the sentence was served at Papunya Native Reserve. He was released after only serving two months due to medical and humanitarian reasons.

Despondent after his incarceration, Namatjira continued to live with Rubina in a cottage at Papunya, where he suffered a heart attack. There is evidence that Albert believed that he had the bone pointed at him by a member of Fay Iowa's family. The idea of being "sung" to death was also held by Frank Clune, a popular travel writer, aboriginal activist, and organiser of Albert's whirlwind 1956 trip.

After being transferred to Alice Springs hospital, Namatjira astonished his mentor Rex Battarbee by presenting him with three landscapes, with a promise of more to come; a promise unrealised. He died soon after of heart disease complicated by pneumonia on 8 August 1959 in Alice Springs.

Legacy

At the time of his death Namatjira had painted a total of around two thousand paintings and had two short biographical films made about him. His unique style of painting however was denounced soon after his death by some critics as being a product of his assimilation into western culture, rather than his own connection to his subject matter or his natural style.^{[citation needed]} This view has been largely abandoned and Albert Namatjira is hailed as one of the greatest Australian artists and a pioneer for Aboriginal rights.

Namatjira's work is on public display in some of Australia's major art galleries, with some noteworthy exceptions. The Art Gallery of New South Wales rejected Namatjira's work. In the words of Hal Missingham, the then Director of the gallery: "We'll consider his work when it comes up to scratch".

Namatjira is the subject of a song of the same name by the Australian band Not Drowning, Waving, included on their 1993 album, Circus. He is also referenced in Midnight Oil's song, Truganani; I Am Australian; John Williamson's Raining on the Rock from his 1986 EMI album Mallee Boy and also The Camel Boy from his 2005 EMI album Chandelier Of Stars and in Archie Roach's song, Native Born. Slim Dusty was the first recording artist to record a tribute song, "Namatjira", in the 1960s, and Rick and Thel Carey followed up with their tribute "The Stairs That Namatjira Climbed".

In 1968 Namatjira was honoured on a postage stamp issued by Australia Post [1] and again in 1993 with examples of his work.[2][3]

See also

Australian art

References

• Kleinert. "Namatjira, Albert (Elea) (1902 - 1959)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Australian National University. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A150530b.htm?hilite=Albert%3BNamatjira. Retrieved 2007-11-16. 
• Biography - Australian National Botanic Gardens

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Albert Namatjira

• Seeing the Centre: The art of Albert Namatjira 1902-1959, a National Gallery of Australia travelling and online exhibition
• Albert Namatjira photograph collection, National Library of Australia
• Namatjira's works in the National Gallery of Australia
• Australian Dictionary of Biography entry
• [4]
• [5]

v t e Central and Western Desert art Institutions ANKAAA  · Araluen Centre for Arts and Entertainment  · Contemporary Indigenous Australian art  · Desart  · Hermannsburg School  · List of Australian Indigenous art movements and cooperatives  · National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award  · Papunya Tula Significant places Alice Springs, Northern Territory  · Balgo, Western Australia  · Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory  · Kintore, Northern Territory  · Papunya, Northern Territory  · Pukatja (Ernabella), South Australia  · Utopia, Northern Territory  · Yuendumu, Northern Territory Artists: women Josepha Petrick Kemarre  · Lucy Napaljarri Kennedy  · Emily Kngwarreye  · Doreen Reid Nakamarra  · Ada Andy Napaltjarri  · Biddy Rockman Napaljarri  · Daisy Jugadai Napaltjarri  · Eileen Napaltjarri  · Helen Nelson Napaljarri  · Kitty Pultara Napaljarri  · Linda Syddick Napaltjarri  · Louisa Napaljarri  · Molly Jugadai Napaltjarri  · Mona Rockman Napaljarri  · Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri  · Nora Andy Napaltjarri  · Norah Nelson Napaljarri  · Parara Napaltjarri  · Peggy Rockman Napaljarri  · Sheila Brown Napaljarri  · Susie Bootja Bootja Napaltjarri  · Takariya Napaltjarri  · Tjunkiya Napaltjarri  · Topsy Gibson Napaljarri  · Valerie Lynch Napaltjarri  · Wintjiya Napaltjarri  · Makinti Napanangka  · Dorothy Napangardi  · Pansy Napangardi  · Naata Nungurrayi  · Gloria Petyarre  · Kathleen Petyarre  · Nancy Petyarre  · Minnie Pwerle  · Maggie Napaljarri Ross  · Barbara Weir Artists: men Albert Namatjira  · Wenten Rubuntja  · Paddy Japaljarri Stewart  · Anatjari Tjakamarra  · Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula  · Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri  · Timmy Payungka Tjapangati  · Yannima Tommy Watson  · Major works Earth's Creation  · Warlugulong

Persondata
Name	Namatjira, Albert
Alternative names	Namatjira, Elea
Short description	Australian painter
Date of birth	28 July 1902
Place of birth	Hermannsburg, Northern Territory
Date of death	8 August 1959
Place of death	Alice Springs, Northern Territory

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