6 Leaving aside any speculation about fakes, the most reputable sources for her work are able to track the code numbers attached to paintings. A conservative estimation indicates that Rodney Gooch/Christopher Hodges handled no less than 800 paintings, the Holts 1500, and Fred Torres’ Dacou Gallery 800. There were many others that provide documentation proving the bona fides of paintings created for them.
7 G. Petitjean, ‘The Lines of Willy Tjungurrayi: Cultural Concepts of art in Western Desert Painting’, Art and Australia, June 2000.
8 Water Dreaming at Kalipinypa (1972).
9 Art Market Report, issue 28A, Special Melbourne Art Fair edition, July 2008.
10 P. Jones, ‘Margaret Frances Carnegie AO OAM: writer and art collector’, The Age, 14 August 2002.
11 SOFA – Sculpture Objects Functional Art + Design Fair. GRUPO – Grupo de Estudios sobre Culturas Indígenas y Afroamericanas.
12 In an official statement from the Aboriginal Arts Management Association dated 24 November 1992, its Chairman, Lin Onus, wrote: ‘From the police point of view the case is closed … It is worthwhile to note that the original allegations surrounding the creation of My Country Malwan were fueled by hearsay and fanned by sensationalism. Those who made a meal of this issue in its early stages include Mr Derryn Hinch and Mr Jeff Kennett. Never mind the fact that a number of eye witnesses, including myself, had ventured the observation that they had indeed seen the artist in question creating this work.’
13 McLeod’s own application for the position was supported with a letter from Wally Caruana, the curator of the Australian National Gallery’s Aboriginal art collection, amongst others.
14 McLeod’s diary notes.
15 C. Pybus (ed.), Australian Humanities Review 1997,
16 Today it is the preferred position of these companies as well as Bonhams, Deutscher and Hackett, and Mossgreen – in fact all ‘Tier 1’ auction houses other than Menzies.
17 From its low point of around US$0.60 in mid 1986, the Australian dollar rose by some 49% to around US$0.89 by January 1989; however, it returned to US$0.80 toward the end of 1991, and by 1995 fluctuated between US$0.74 and US$0.77.
18 Brenda Croft, during a heated debate at the Fourth National Aboriginal Visual Arts and Crafts Conference, Adelaide, March 2002.
19 Aka DAAT, and later Palya Art Air Tour.
20 J. Altman, C. McGuigan and P. Yu, The Aboriginal Arts and Crafts Industry, report of the Review Committee, Department of Aboriginal Affairs, July 1989.
21 The Dreamings exhibition in New York, and The Inspired Dream travelled to venues in South East Asia at the end of the 1980s. Crossroads: Towards a New Reality – Aboriginal Art from Australia was shown in Japan in 1992. Aratjara: Art of the First Australians toured Europe between 1993 and 1994. The groundbreaking exhibition Tyerabarrbowaryaou – I Shall Never Become a White Man, curated by Djon Mundine and Fiona Foley, was staged at the fifth Havana Biennial in Cuba. In 1995 works from the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art toured a number of venues throughout New Zealand, while the exhibition Stories curated by Anne Marie Brody, comprising works by 11 Aboriginal artists in the Holmes à Court Collection, toured German museums in Hanover, Leipzig, Berlin and Achen.
22 F. Wright and D. Mundine, ‘Passion, Rich Collectors, and the Export Dollar: The Selling of Aboriginal Art Overseas’, Artlink, vol. 18, 1998.
23 This and other Thomas Vroom quotes come from an interview conducted with the author in March 2013.
24 Rover’s Melbourne trip had been arranged by Peter Harrison of Kimberley Art Gallery, who had first met Kevin Kelly when they both worked at the Museum of Victoria. McLeod raised $30,000 from friends for his share of the expenses and Harrison raised the remainder.
25 While a great deal of material, including photographic and video documentation, survive, due to the fire on 22 February 2004 many records and photographs were destroyed; it is therefore impossible to assess the precise number completed at this time.
26 ‘In Rocksleigh Ave, The Unlikely Artists Commune’, an essay by Tiriki Onus for the yet to be published book thoroughly documenting Neil McLeod’s collecting history.
27 All paintings were created on the same specially prepared pre-primed Belgian linen supplied by Dragan Ivanovic, owner of Linen & Stretchers Co. The artist’s black was mostly a combination of charcoal and black acrylic paint. Imported Bayer mineral pigments purchased from Hodgkin Colour in Melbourne, and ochres collected by McLeod during his Kimberley visits were mixed with Liquitex medium.
28 Alan McCulloch was the author of McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, first published in 1968. After her father died in 1992, Susan McCulloch began working on the 1994 edition of the Encyclopedia as the co–author. She revised his existing 250,000 words and added a further 500,000 of her own. McCulloch’s Encyclopedia 2006 edition built on this again, co-authored by Alan McCulloch, Susan McCulloch and her daughter Emily McCulloch Childs. The 1.2 million–word single volume comprises 1,216 pages, 200 of which are devoted to Aboriginal art.
29 Its director was Alan’s friend, the legendary former curator and director of both the Guggenheim and MoMA, J.J. Sweeney.
30 Personal communication with Susan McCulloch, March 2013.
31 S. McCulloch, ‘Authentic Forgery: The Faking of Aboriginal Art’, The Weekend Australian, 7–8 October 1995.
32 J. Mendelssohn, ‘Aboriginal Art’, The Australian, 9 June 1995.
33 S. McCulloch, ‘Emily’s Country’, The Australian Magazine, 8–9 February 1998, pp. 10–14.
34 ‘Rogues Gallery’, reporter Sally Neighbour, on ABC–TV Four Corners, broadcast 10 May 1999,
35 T. Stephens, ‘That’s the City, Back to the Bore’, Sydney Morning Herald, 1992.
36 Ibid.
37 By the former field officer Don McLeod (no relation), who was also with Rover during this visit to Melbourne.
38 Dr Romaine Moreton in Australian Screen,
39 The Weekend Australian, 28 February – 1 March 1998, p. 16.
40 B. Hurrell, ‘The Great Art Dot Con’, Daily Telegraph, 3 February 2001.
41 They included his wife, Mary, the wives of his sons, and other appropriate skin ‘daughters’ (female relatives of the Nakamarra skin group).
42 The title of Helen Demidenko’s book published five years earlier (1994).
43 D. Schulz, ‘When Dreaming Turns to Nightmare’, The Bulletin, 11 May 1999.
44 Personal communication with the author.
45 D. Schulz and D. Simmons, ‘Pix, Lies and Videotape’, The Bulletin, 10 March 1998.
46 Nellie Tolson Nakamarra is quoted by Schulz in ‘When Dreaming Turns to Nightmare’, The Bulletin, 11 May 1999 as saying, ‘That kunga [white] woman told me to just sit there with Turkey’s picture and hold the brush like I’m painting. Then they snap the photo.’ The article then claims that the painting used as a prop in the front-page image of The Australian newspaper was Tolson’s, not Nellie’s.
47 Including Dr Christine Nicholls in subsequent articles.
48 Both quotes from S. Smith, ‘Culture Vultures’, Courier Mail, Brisbane, 24 April 1999.
49 Lecturer in Indigenous art and language at Flinders University.
50 On 1 May 1999.
51 For further information, refer to the website of the Art Consulting Association of Australia,
52 M. O’Riordan, ‘Hector Jandanay’, Australian Art Collector, Issue 28, April 2004, p. 235.
53 The ceremony was photographed by Neil McLeod.
54 Watters made a great deal of mileage out of the fact that Aboriginal artists should be represented in the same way as non-Aboriginal artists.
55 The title of the work was Mandangala, North Turkey Creek (1989).
56 Including Michael Eather of Fireworks Gallery in Brisbane, Vivien Anderson from Melbourne, Roslyn Premont from Gallery Gondwana in Alice Spr
ings, Steve Culley from Japingka in Perth and myself.
57 Amongst them, Lin Onus, Michael Eather, Steve Culley, Bronwyn Bancroft, Djon Mundine and the founding CEO of NIAAA, Chris McGuigan.
58 T. and R. Bray, ‘Perkins calls Aborigines to protest in Sydney during Games’, AAP, 21 May 2000.
59 For further information, refer to
60 Prof. J. Altman, ‘The economics of the Visual Arts Industry and prospects for the next decade’, paper presented to the 1999 National Indigenous Visual Arts and Crafts Conference, Cairns, 1–3 November 1999.
61 PricewaterhouseCoopers, ‘What’s in a name: branding strategies for the new retail economy’, Critical issues: a retail intelligence system publication, 1999.
62 Other important painters included Tommy May, Maryanne Purlta (Downs), Peter Skipper, Stumpy Brown, Nada Rawlins, Rosie Goodji, Paji Honeychild, Cory Surprise and Mona Chuguna.
63 They had met at the suggestion of David Mowaljarlai and anthropologist Kevin Shaw.
64 Letter received by Japingka Gallery dated 5 May 2005.
65 H. Perkins, ‘The Scandal Lies in Our Double Standards’, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 June 1999.
66 Figures quoted from the Pascoe Report 1981, the Miller Report 1985, the Blanchard Homelands Report 1987, the Altman Report 1989 and the Mingajuta Report 1993.
67 F. Wright (ed.), The Art and Craft Centre Story, Volume One Report, A Survey of Thirty-nine Aboriginal Community Art and Craft Centres in Remote Australia, vol. 1, report, ATSIC, Canberra, and Desart Inc., 1999.
68 F. Wright (ed.), The Art and Craft Centre Story, reported that 44% of those surveyed in communities with art centres do not share a commitment to the Aboriginalisation of all staff positions.
69 See
70 F. Myers, Painting Culture: The Making of an Aboriginal High Art, pp. 200–1.
BOOK 7
1 Dharug-speaking clans included the Cadigal, Cammeraigal, Bidjigal and many others, stretching from Palm Beach to Kurnell and inland to the foot of the Blue Mountains.
2 The demise of the government marketing company, which had operated the World Expo Indigenous art venue in 1988, had left no government-backed organisation to manage the Indigenous venue on the Olympic site. Despite the unlikelihood of success, Art.Trade (which included a number of Indigenous artists and community organisations) submitted a tender document. Its proposal offered the services of an internationally renowned professional exhibition agency that would save ATSIC several hundred thousand dollars by providing the demountable exhibition venue at no charge. Art.Trade secured letters of support and guarantees from a large number of art centres, as well as many Indigenous-owned and operated art businesses following consultations across the country. When only half of the SOCOG Indigenous selection panel turned up at the presentation, however, the Art.Trade delegation knew immediately that despite the quality of its tender document and proposal, it had no chance of success.
3 Sex with Aboriginal girls.
4 This major commission was secured by Michael Kershaw of the Australian Art Print Network.
5 Margo Neale started out as a schoolteacher in Arnhem Land in the 1970s. She organised the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Art Awards for the International Year of Indigenous People in 1993. She later set the intellectual direction for the Yiribana Gallery at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. While at the Queensland Art Gallery she mounted Emily Kngwarreye’s first retrospective exhibition which toured nationally during 1998, the Lin Onus retrospective in 2000, and was Chair of the Australia and Pacific selection teams for the Asia Pacific Triennial. She later co-edited the voluminous Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture with Sylvia Kleinert.
6 When the art adviser James Cowan ensured that men and women painted separately.
7 G. Petitjean, ‘Trajectories of Aboriginal Art, from the Desert to the White Cube’, paper delieved at Dhukarr, Itineraries in Contemporaray Aborignal Art, Museo delle Culture, Lugano, April 2013.
8 V. Johnson, ‘Seeing is Believing, A Brief History of Papunya Tula Artists 1971–2000’ in H. Perkins and H. Fink (eds), Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, p. 197.
9 Geoff Bardon had left the community with a wealth of photographic material, field notes, sketches and journals. Living with the permanent effects of mental illness, he spent the better part of a decade assisted by his wife Dorn and others systematising his vast archives. These had been gathered during trips back to the community in 1973 and 1974, and later with his brother James in 1980, 1991, 1996 and as late as 1998, at which time he discussed the sacred secret nature of many of the works with Dick Kimber. These were augmented during field trips with his brother James, photographer Allan Scott and companion Frank Slip, the meticulous recorder of many diagrammatic representations of artworks. Even so, despite the size and scope of this magnificent book, a large volume of Bardon’s material remains unpublished.
10 S. Greagh, ‘Native Title Honoured Half a World Away’, Sydney Morning Herald, 31 May 2006.
11 For information on the Aboriginal Benefits Foundation, see
12 Rodney Menzies, having bought the 100-year-old Sydney company Lawsons Auctioneers, changed its name to Lawson~Menzies. From this time forward, this became his vehicle for generating Aboriginal art sales.
13 Kukutjara (2003), measuring 140 x 177 cm, sold for $33,000 plus buyer’s premium.
14 The most interesting of the other emerging artists highlighted in the catalogue were Alkawari Dawson, Anmanari Brown, Kuntjil Cooper, Nyakul Dawson and Wingu Tingima.
15 Anthony ‘Ace’ Bourke.
16 Jeremy Eccles in the Art Market Report, Spring 2005, Issue 17.
17 Ibid.
18 Terry Ingram, ‘Aboriginal Impass Revisited’, Australian Financial Review, 7 April 2005.
19 Iconophilia, ‘Aboriginal Art Centres on Nicolas Rothwell’s Frontier’, 3 May 2011. Contributors in Perspective, Darren Jorgensen, ‘Bagging Aboriginal Art: The intervention and the community art movement’ (first published in Arena #111, March– April 2011, pp. 38–42).
20 7 April 2005.
21 His Oceanic shields have been published as the core collection in eminent ethnographer Harry Beran and Craig Barry’s book, Shields of Oceania (2005). His collection of rare books on tribal and Oceanic art extends to more than 300 titles.
22 This later increased to 60% as Watson’s reputation and income grew.
23 M. Geissler, Justice for Leading Black Artist, Aboriginal Art Directory, 12 April 2008.
24 The alliance consisted of Gabriella Roy’s Aboriginal and Pacific Gallery in Sydney, Vivien Anderson Gallery in Melbourne, Marshall Arts in Adelaide, and Brigitte Braun’s Artplace Gallery in Perth.
25 L. McKenny, Entertainment and Arts, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 July 2008.
26 These artists included Alkawari Dawson, Anmanari Brown, Eileen Stevens, Tiger Palpatja, Nyakul Dawson, Kuntjil Cooper (the matriarch), Myra Cook, Patju Presley, Roma Butler, Tjuruparu Watson, Wingu Tingima and Carol Golding.
27 J. McDonald, ‘Tommy Watson and the Politics of the Indigenous Art Market’, Australian Art Monthly, January 2010.
28
29
30 N. Rothwell, ‘A Dream of a Studio’, The Australian, 21 July 2007.
31 Including Blood on the Spinifex at the National Gallery of Victoria and True Stories at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
32 Held at William Mora Galleries, Raft Artspace and GrantPirrie Gallery.
33 For a snapshot of the contemporary hardships facing Kimberley Aboriginal people, see N. Rothwell, ‘Living Hard, Dying Young in the Kimberley’, The Australian, 30 April 2011.
34 Desert Heart, Rebel Films, 2008.
35 These ‘investment galleries’ needed to have access to a wide variety of art across a range of mediums that would enable them to develop portfolios beginning at $15,000, and growing to perhaps $250,000. Aboriginal prints
and works on paper were ideal as entry-level purchases, as were works by prolific ‘name’ artists regardless of source provenance. At a time when art centres were barely able to supply quality works to those galleries with which they had long-standing commitments and loyalty, these new players would need different sources. They began purchasing directly from artists through their own operatives in the field: buying works from urban artists outside of their gallery representation; taking on unrepresented artists; and working with independent dealers who could provide quality works from the source.
36 This figure is entirely intuitive and based on my own first-hand experience.
37 The proportions of the bookshop were changed and as a result Mawurndjul’s painting was reproduced in the wrong scale on the ceiling. When he visited the museum after his retrospective in Basel he asked to paint the pillar to show it the right way. He could not, however, finish it in time and young French artists completed the job to his specifications after he departed.
38 Prince of Wales was a leader of Larrakia ceremonies and dances. His father, Imabul, was also known as King George and this, perhaps as much as the fact that he danced for Queen Elizabeth during a royal trip to Australia in the 1960s, resulted in his familiar ‘English’ name.
39 TAFE (Teaching and Further Education college).
40 Nicolas Rothwell, ‘Scams in the Desert’, The Australian, 4–5 March 2006, pp. 19–22.
41 G. Winestock, ‘Indigenous Arts Revenue Down 52pc in Five Years’, Australian Financial Review, 18 January 2013.
42 As quoted by Elizabeth Attwood in the Alice Springs News on 9 March 2006.
43 Member of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory Government.
44 J. Eccles, ‘War Declared, Alison Anderson Nampitjinpa, Painter and Politician’, Aboriginal Art Directory, 8 April 2011.
45 Record of interview by the author with Papadimitriou. Klingender advised buying a Turkey Tolson Spear Straightening work and Tingari paintings by Joseph Jurra, Mick Namarari and Ronnie Tjampitjinpa in particular
46 J. Eccles, ‘Vitriol in the Name of Art’, The Canberra Times, 20 June 2006.
The Dealer is the Devil Page 58