More than a century after anthropologist Sir Baldwin Spencer collected paintings of bark from Arnhem Land, research is underway to identify the artists who created the work.
These are some of the oldest and most prized bark paintings in Australia, and have been preserved in a vault about 4,000 miles away in Melbourne.
A group of artists and a cultural advisor from Arnhem Land have flown south to see the paintings in person for the first time.
A 110-year-old bark paint from Arnhem Land of Kinga with hand stencils. (Supplied by: Museums Victoria)
In 1912, Spencer acquired bark paints in exchange for tobacco near Gunbalanya, then a mission known as Oenpelli, west of Arnhem Land.
Over the next decade, he commissioned 120 more bark paintings for cash through his local contact, buffalo hunter Paddy Cahill.
The paintings had great national and international recognition, including Houston, Texas, in the United States.
But the responsible artists were never recognized.
Gunbalanya artists are now working with researchers to name those who painted the irreplaceable crusts from 1912 to 1922, document their stories, and give the descendants a say in what happens next.
“It’s a real detective job,” said the principal investigator working on the project, Associate Professor Sally K May.
“These works are considered the birth of the bark paint movement we see continuing today.”
Artists and a cultural adviser from Arnhem Land have traveled to Melbourne to try to combine works with artists. (Provided by: Alex Ressel)
“Amazing snapshot in the time of master artists”
Oral histories, historical records, handprint measurements, and comparisons with rock art painted at the time are part of the research.
The paintings feature X-ray depictions of fish, kangaroos, equids, and ancestral beings in a variety of styles.
“This is an incredible snapshot in the time of the master artists of the time,” Dr. May said.
Spencer said he wanted “the best artists of the time painting for this collection.”
“[The barks] they are so unique and it is clear that there is a great story behind them. We are working with the community to see what the story may be. “
A story emerged in Melbourne last month when cultural adviser Kenneth Mangiru saw the bark of a three-meter kinga (word Kunwinku for crocodile).
He instantly recognized the work of his great-grandfather Majumbu.
“My great-grandfather, my mother’s grandfather’s grandfather, did a crocodile painting, on rock art, and he did it on bark, a big one,” he said.
“I came to the Melbourne Museum and saw a big one, with the bark.”
Look closely for Kinga on the Rock with artist Majumbu near Gunbalanya, photo from the 1970s. (NT Museum and Art Gallery: George Chaloupka)
Professor Joakim Goldhahn, another researcher working on the project, said an identical picture of the rock was painted half a day’s walk from Gunbalanya at the same time as the crust.
“We can see his family in art, the handprints of his younger children, about four and eight years old. We are working almost with a family portrait,” said Professor Goldhahn.
“A Family Portrait”: 1912 Children’s Hand Stencils. (ABC News: Simon Tucci)
As the investigation continues, a first-hand account of one of Spencer’s 1912 commissioned artists, Paddy Compass Namadbara, has emerged.
It was discovered in the archives of art collector Lance Bennett, after parts of a book he wrote for an exhibition in Japan were translated back into English.
“He is the only one, with his own voice, who tells us about his experience, with his own words and memories, from an Aboriginal perspective,” Professor Goldhahn said.
Artists would like to take home the invaluable barks, but there are no plans to do so.
“The works are very friable. When the ocher is painted on rocks it is almost tattooed under the surface: when it is in the crust, it sits on top,” said researcher and doctoral student Alex Ressel.
The gold and hen of the 1912 Paddy Compass Namadbara swamp in the Victoria Museum warehouse. (ABC News: Simon Tucci)
While adhesives are used in modern art, in 1912 a mixture of sap, kangaroo blood and saliva was used to bind the ocher and clay.
Among visitors to Melbourne last month, artist Shaun Namarnyilk spoke of a strong connection to the work.
He saw variations in the crustal crust thickness of the crocodile crust as evidence that Majumbu was a mentor to a younger artist, a practice that continued today.
“So they’re like very thick lines and I see that in the legs there, it’s different. They both work together, father and son,” Namarnyilk said.
Artists continue a legacy
Back in Gunbalanya, Namarnyilk painted a dolobbo (bark) inspired by the visit, with the same story of the Kolobarr (a male red kangaroo) and the Mimih spirit.
Loading
At the Melbourne Museum with the artists last month, Dr May described the visit as historic and emotional.
“Let’s look for the archives, and the names of the artists we can find, we can start working on their biographies, moving them away from the Spencer / Cahill collection to make it a collection that represents Aboriginal people and these amazing artists who produced the works, ”he said.
And the research has the support of the institution that has the priceless collection.
“Every action we take now to decolonize our institution will have incredible and steady impacts for future generations,” said Dr. Shannon Faulkhead, head of the Victoria Museums First Towns Department.
As for an exhibition of the work, Museums Victoria said it would only be at the request of families.