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Lot 22

Rover Thomas
(circa 1926-1998)
Mistake Creek, c.1983

Amended

Important Australian and Aboriginal Art including works from the Estate of Mary Macha AM

19 November 2017, 16:00 AEDT

Melbourne, Armadale

Sold for AU$12,427.28 inc. premium

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Rover Thomas (circa 1926-1998)

Mistake Creek, c.1983
signed verso: 'ROVER THMAOS' (sic); descriptive inscription verso
natural earth pigments and natural binders on plywood
47.5 x 47.5cm (18 11/16 x 18 11/16in).

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
The Estate of Mary Macha AM, Perth

RELATED WORK
Camp at Mistake Creek, 1990, natural earth pigments on canvas, 122.0cm x 151.7cm in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

The inscription reads: "Mistake Creek. The Black is the river and the white is the sandstone bank 'Lalura' and 'Borris' country. Djaru & Nyinine Boundary Rainbow Snake Dreaming. Whenever someone dies and the people reckon someone has sung him they take some hair or clothes from the dead person and throw them in the waterhole. The rainbow snake will kill the murderer."

Thomas painted several works relating to the massacre of Aboriginal people in the Eastern Kimberley from around the 1890s to the 1930s, often as a result of land and cattle disputes. Mistake Creek features in one of these accounts in which a cattle station owner encounters some Aboriginal people killing some of his cattle. He shot several of them and others escaped to a camp at Mistake Creek where a previous massacre had taken place in 1915.

Saleroom notices

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