Footnotes

• PROVENANCE:
  Painted at Minjilang (Croker Island), western Arnhem Land in the late 1950s
  Private collection
  Sotheby's, Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, 9 July 2001, lot 6
  Private collection
  
  This depiction of love-making mimis with minimal detail and strong white forms is typical of the work produced by other 1960s painters from Croker Island including Yirawala, Midjaw Midjaw, Jambalula and Paddy Compass Namatbara. It was believed that the act of painting copulation combined with calling the desired partners name would initiate the act. (Luke Taylor, 'Flesh Bone and Spirit: Western Arnhem Land Bark Painting' in Howard Morphy and M. Smith Boles (eds.), Art from the Land: Dialogues with the Kluge-Ruhe Collection of Australian Aboriginal Art, Charlottesville USA: University of Virginia, 1999, p.36).

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Category: Fine Art / Aboriginal Art

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