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Art of Namatjira Transcends Racial Barriers

Albert Namatjira is an Australian aborigine; he is also an artist. The Bread and Cheese Club, a society of art and letters, did not publish his work as a curiosity of native production, nor even with the aim of encouraging the badly used aborigine.

"The fact that he is dark skinned, the fact that he is a member of a native tribe and has never left his tribal country, the fact that he has had none of the advantages usually gained by academic training and observation of the productions of great masters—all this should be ignored.

"Is it sound art or not? This man is now of sufficient significance to merit consideration as an artist, an artist only, forgetting all prejudice because of difference of race and foregoing for once that patronage so common to us whites when dealing with the work of a dark-skinned nation."

That is a passage from R. H. Croll's preface to the book. Such a preface would hardly be necessary to the work of a Maori. We accept the fact that our natives may excel in artistic as well as other fields; we do not need different tolerance standards to approach the product of a dark-skinned hand. But Australian public opinion has not outgrown the attitude that blacks are a species half way between humans and higher animals; the native "prodigy" tends to be greeted as we applaud a performing dog.

The capacity of Aborigines is, however, becoming more commonly recognised. Outstanding men like Namatjira are at once undeniable proof of native ability and the most potent propaganda for his race. The Australian black seems to be the most-maligned people in the world. In their early contacts with white men these natives were unfortunate; their environment had kept them at a primitive stone-age level, which made sudden adjustment to a European way of life almost impossible. But white Australians in their treatment of the blacks have a heavy charge to answer. Opportunities for even elementary education or training in a trade are slight; they have no political voice and without education or organisation cannot speak to the public for their own rights. Albert Namatjira was lucky. He was a stockman and shearer at Hermannsburg in Central Australia, the country of the Arunta tribe to which he belongs. The Mission authorities say he was a very good stockman, and he carved tasteful boomerangs, but had he not seen an exhibition at the Mission Station he would scarcely have become an "artist" in the white man's sense. Rex Batterbee and John A. Gardner were the exhibiting artists. Batterbee generously offered to give water-colour lessons to any natives willing to learn; it was his support that secured Namatjira painting materials and helped him acquire the technique of water-colour. Namatjira's progress was astonishing, but might have been ignored had not Batter bee arranged Melbourne exhibitions of his work. Since the first exhibition in 1938 the artist has had no difficulty in finding praise and purchasers. He has taken command of his medium, water-colour, and used it to paint his home country—red sand and rock, vivid purple hills, and white-trunked "Ghost gums" and brilliant desert flowers that are his familiar surroundings.

I would repeat, Namatjira is an artist and an aborigine, and he is very lucky. It is time that Australians recognised the undeveloped abilities of their natives, and gave them the opportunity to live and think to the maximum of their capacities. Blacks are good trackers and often lazy stockmen, we know. But is that the whole story—and do Australians care enough to find out?