Yirrkala drawings

Overview

This summer the Art Gallery of NSW will play host to an exhibition of 81 Yirrkala drawings on loan from the Berndt Museum of Anthropology at the University of Western Australia, marking the first time that such a significant selection has ever been displayed. Dating back to 1947, the drawings emerged when senior ceremonial leaders at northeast Arnhem Land’s Yirrkala produced hundreds of brilliantly coloured crayon drawings for anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt.

Created by men from a variety of clan groups, the drawings feature a palette of strikingly vibrant reds, blues, greens, yellows and black. Along with offering a valuable insight into Yolngu life, knowledge and law, the exhibition also displays the mastery of these artists, who seamlessly shifted from painting in natural pigments on bark to the new medium of drawing with crayons on paper.

Many of the featured artists are now considered among the most important bark painters of the 20th century, including Mawalan and Wandjuk Marika, Munggurrawuy Yunupingu, Narritjin Maymuru and Wonggu Mununggurr. The exhibition will also include work by descendants of those who worked with the Berndts in 1947, now themselves nationally and internationally renowned artists.

The exhibition will also be on display in Brisbane at Queensland Art Gallery from 2 April to 19 July, 2014.