Submitted by aarAdmin on Thu, 10/20/2022 - 00:00
The late John Hart’s (1937-2014) collection of Aboriginal watercolour paintings from the Northern Territory’s Hermannsburg Mission west of Alice Springs drew plenty of timed online auction interest on October 18 at Deutscher and Hackett in Melbourne – led by the mission’s famous son, highly talented Albert Namatjira (1902-1959), widely considered one of the greatest and most influential of Australian artists.
His work entitled Ghost Gum and Central Australian Landscape (lot 5) was the top selling lot, knocked for $38,000 slightly above the top catalogue estimate.
Another of his paintings Winbarku c1939 (lot 1) brought $12,000 – again testament to his legacy.
Influenced by Western art techniques, Namatjira only began painting seriously at age 32, departing significantly from the abstract designs and symbols of traditional Aboriginal art and becoming the first indigenous Australian to win the prestigious Archibald Prize for portraiture.
In an auction that realised 64 per cent by volume, other solid results included Rex Battersbee’s Ghost Gum 1967 (lot 9), which sold for $6500, Douglas Kwarlpe Abbott’s Storm Approaching Over Jay Creek 2008 (lot 25), a $3200 return and the last painting John purchased before he died, and Walter Ebatarinja’s Mount Hermannsburg 1963 (lot 4) and Palm Valley, Central Australia (lot 13) each of which brought $3000.
Several of Namatjira’s family’s works also performed well – a good example being Keith Namatjira’s Ghost Gum (lot 33), which was knocked down for $2600 on a $1500-$2500 catalogue estimate.
