UNDOOLYA PAINTED BY ALBERT NAMATJIRA

 

ALBERT NAMATJIRA (1902-1959)

Undoolya (794 m - 2,606 ft)

Australia (Northern Territory) 

 In  Undoolyia range, watercolor, 1947

The mountain
Undoolya or Mount Undoolya (794 m- 2,606 ft) is located in the MacDonnell region and the Northern Territory state, in the central part of Australia, 1,900 km north-west of Canberra is the nation's headline. The ground around Mount Undoolya is usually flat, but on the east it is the hills. The surrounding area has an altitude of 871 meters and 14.8 km north of Mount Undoolya. Nor more than 2 people per square kilometer around Mount Undoolya. No city around. Mount Undoolya is surrounded by lakes. The climate is warm.


The Painter
Albert Namatjira born Elea Namatjira, was a Western Arrernte-speaking Aboriginal artist from the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia. As a pioneer of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, he was the most famous Indigenous Australian of his generation.
Born and raised at the Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission outside Alice Springs, Namatjira showed interest in art from an early age, but it was not until 1934 (aged 32), under the tutelage of Rex Battarbee, that he began to paint seriously. Namatjira's richly detailed, Western art-influenced watercolours of the outback departed significantly from the abstract designs and symbols of traditional Aboriginal art, and inspired the Hermannsburg School of painting. He became a household name in Australia—indeed, reproductions of his works hung in many homes throughout the nation—and he was publicly regarded as a model Aborigine who had succeeded in mainstream society.
Although not the first Aboriginal artist to work in a European style, Albert Namatjira is certainly the most famous. Ghost gums with luminous white trunks, palm-filled gorges and red mountain ranges turning purple at dusk are the hallmarks of the Hermannsburg school. Hermannsburg Mission was established by Lutheran missionaries in 1877 on the banks of the Finke River, west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Namatjira learnt watercolour technique from the artist, Rex Battarbee.


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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau