Title

Seeing the Centre: The art of Albert Namatjira 1902-1959.

Collective title

A National Gallery of Australia travelling exhibition

Venues

Araluen Art Centre Gallery (28 July 2002 – 22 September 2002)

National Gallery Of Australia (5 October 2002 – 19 January 2003)

Art Gallery Of South Australia. (7 March 2003 – 4 May 2003)

National Gallery of Victoria: Australia. The Ian Potter Centre. (24 May 2003 – 27 July 2003)

Queensland Art Gallery [2]. (9 August 2003 – 2 November 2003)

Date

(2002 – 2003)

Summary

Single-artist exhibition. Located: Australia

Documentation

catalogue

Web address

http://www.nga.gov.au/namatjira/index.htm

Country of context

Australia

Abstract

Seeing the Centre reassesses the life and art of Western Aranda (Arrernte) artist, Albert Namatjira (1902-1959). For all his success, Namatjira's achievements were dismissed as purely derivative by many art commentators. He is now seen to have reworked the models of the European watercolour tradition to express a personal vision. His subjects were not chosen for their beauty in European terms, but as ancestral landscapes though which he expressed his relationship with the country to which he was spiritually bound. His images are of a land unshaped by evidence of European settlement. [Gallery media, 2002].