In October 2020 it will be 40 years since I first began collecting and showing Australian Aboriginal art. I have been contemplating this and reminiscing whilst surrounded by 97 wonderful Aboriginal artworks at Cooee Art’s June 23rd auction viewing – reminiscing about my adventures throughout the Australian outback and the thousands of people, black and white, who I have met on my incredible 40-year journey. Artists, community workers, anthropologists, curators, dealers, gallerists are just a small cross-section of those who have constituted the Indigenous art movement in all its fullness.
Each of the paintings in this viewing have passed through so many different hands, on their journey to this moment in time, in this particular place. They are the very best pieces that I have found during the past six months to offer for sale from around Australia and overseas collections. The artworks span 100 years of Aboriginal creativity and are drawn from disparate cultures across the length and breadth of the continent. My criterion for selection is always quality, first and foremost. The selection criteria that others apply is of little interest to me. The high moral ground is invariably staked out through naivety or commercial self-interest.
In 2019, Aboriginal art hung front and the centre on the international art stage, with major museum shows in Houston, Brazil, and Switzerland. Millions had been exposed to the art of the first Australians through museum exhibitions and attendant publicity in South America during the previous three years. Between September 2019 and February 2020 alone, successful exhibitions and auctions were held in New York, Sydney, and Melbourne, and while the visual and performing arts have been deeply affected since the international lockdown, Aboriginal art galleries report better than expected sales during the current world-wide economic downturn. This international success has followed an incredible trajectory since the commodification of Indigenous Australian material culture more than a century ago.
It has been achieved against an, at times, ugly backdrop of demarcation disputes, petty jealousy and unethical behaviour amongst the largely white recipients and eventual custodians of these items of material culture.
During the early colonial period, artefacts created before and after first contact were traded and sold as curios. By the beginning of the 20th century a tiny number of artists had created nostalgic images of corroborees and traditional hunting life before settlement on reserves and missions. The first real ‘school’ of Aboriginal art to gain public attention was the Hermannsburg watercolourists whose images of the Central Desert and Western MacDonnell ranges became synonymous with our collective vision of the outback. By 1960, paintings by Arnhem Land bark artists were sold in art shops in America and England and entered international museum collections. As demand grew, small craft enterprises sprang up around the country. In the remote settlement of Papunya, deep in the Western Desert, Aboriginal yardsmen painted a school mural that sparked a painting revolution that would resonate across the entire continent.
Throughout the past 200 years, items of material culture have been traded in a variety of ways. The craftsmen and artists who made them understood that this exchange was the pathway to both preservation and respect. For at least 150 years, long before there was any government patronage, artefacts and art passed through the hands of pastoralists, anthropologists, missionaries and exchanged for trade goods, rations and utilitarian items in a manner that was considered of mutual benefit. From the very onset of the painting movement, in spite of a prevailing regime of semi-institutionalisation, and at a time when Aboriginal people were prevented from earning and saving money, artists entered into friendships and commercial relationships with contractors and teachers, shop owners and landowners as they sought to exchange artworks for currency. As they gained greater freedom and independence over time their desire to engage in enterprise on their own terms inexorably increased. Living in the sedentary communities that were the vestiges of failed government resettlement policies and missions, many sought the means to buy vehicles in order to resume a ‘modern’ nomadic way of life. They made art to keep their culture alive, pass on their stories, attend important culture meetings and gain respect for their knowledge and skill. Artists, many of whom have been shareholders of important community-based art organisations, have seen no conflict in creating art for others in order to maintain their independent way of life.
Today there are more than 140 geographically disbursed Indigenous art centres. Add to these the hundreds of independent artists embracing self-determination through their own enterprise by painting for dealers, galleries and agents and you have art production on a massive scale. While it is undeniably true that the most culturally significant art of the painting movement was created by those who grew to maturity at a time when their culture was least disturbed, the burgeoning Aboriginal art market goes to prove that one must never overlook the on-going resilience, strength and appeal of Aboriginal creativity.
When Europeans first settled in Australia, there were (arguably) 750,000 Indigenous people belonging to 260 distinct language groups who spoke 500 different dialects. Their way of life, belief system, ceremonial life, art, design and material culture was specific to each and every group. I liken the entire corpus of Aboriginal culture to a magnificent massive and ancient tree of knowledge. Its many branches represent hundreds of individual language groups that have flourished and spread flowers and seed for 60,000 years as each successive generation carried its ancient wisdom through the generations. Its roots buried deep into the earth, are the ancient songlines that spread and interweave across the entire continent rendering the land through which they travel numinous, alive and full of spirit. Upon the coming of Europeans, the fencing and clearing of the country, the loss of culture due to disease, the destruction of the nomadic ancient way of life and restrictions on ceremonial practices by the state and church this great and ancient tree has slowly withered to the point of dying. In a last desperate attempt to keep its ancient knowledge alive it has spread its seed in the form of tens of thousands of individual cultural artefacts to the far corners of the globe.
Every art movement has its golden moment. It flourishes for only a finite period. There were less than 1000 Indigenous paintings created in Australia prior to the 1970s and possibly 10,000 in the 10 years following. From 1980 onward, the movement flourished as old people in community after community passed on their ancient stories to their descendants. This multiplied exponentially over the following decades. Those who initiated the art movement had grown to adulthood prior to contact with the outside world. They were the last to remember the nomadic past of their clans and practice ceremony in its fullest expression. The old men were the heartbeat, then the older women added their voice. During the 1980s urban artists heeded their call. At its peak, the painting movement was like a fire advancing across the country. Each place it touched was hot one moment and spent the next. The most important artists were those that continued to blaze – like the few trees that continue to burn long after a fire has moved on.
This ancient tree of knowledge is what underpins and informs all Aboriginal art and culture. There are those who say that the Dreamtime and the old way of life is part of a romantic past. The artworks created by the elders during the last 100 years attest to the creative genius of a tradition that is 60,000 years old. A tradition that recognised the power and spirit in the earth and the importance of nurturing and protecting it for this and future generations.
All this energy and passion to create art was born of a cultural and historical imperative. Tribal custodians facing the loss of language, custom and culture have desperately sought to tell their story and assert their rights over land. In time, the new caretakers of this priceless cultural legacy have become, almost by default, institutions, museums and passionate private collectors.
As I look about me, at the wonderful paintings we have collected, I am struck by a feeling of privilege and respect. Privilege to be able to live with any of these incredible works of art, and respect for the wonderful men and women who have magnanimously shared their powerful and abiding culture with us.
Gallerists, dealers, art centre managers and traders of Indigenous art promote and pass on important historical, spiritual, and cultural material. Contained within its lines, dots, and crosshatch lies both the history of the Aboriginal art industry, and the authority and autonomy of its creators. Our responsibility is to tell this story in its fullness, not to bury it behind a veneer of Western art, where a painting gains worth only by travelling through a specific and almost always white pair of hands. Working Indigenous artists have no use for our façade. If the history of Aboriginal art has proved anything, it is that these constructs hold absolutely no importance to its artists. Their priority is keeping their culture alive and passing it on to future generations. The value of an artwork doesn’t lie in its’ monetary value but it its power to perform this task.
Adrian Newstead OAM
