Lot 110
Albert Namatjira(1902-1959)Ghost Gum, Western James Range
2 December 2025, 19:30 AEDT
SydneyAU$30,000 - AU$40,000
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Alex Clark
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Merryn Schriever
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Albert Namatjira (1902-1959)
Ghost Gum, Western James Range
signed lower right: 'Albert Namatjira'
watercolour on paper
31.5 x 47.0cm (12 3/8 x 18 1/2in).
signed lower right: 'Albert Namatjira'
watercolour on paper
31.5 x 47.0cm (12 3/8 x 18 1/2in).
Footnotes
PROVENANCE
Athenaeum Gallery, Melbourne
Private collection, Sweden, acquired from the above on 15 November 1952
EXHIBITED
Water Colors by the Aranda Group of Aboriginal Artists - Under the auspices of the Aranda Arts Council, Athenaeum Gallery, Melbourne, closing 15 November 1952, cat. 8
This work is accompanied by an original exhibition catalogue from the Athenaeum Gallery, Melbourne
Namatjira's mentor, teacher and friend Rex Battarbee, suggested in his diaries that the artist's framing of scenes was influenced by his interest in photography. It is a convincing premise when considering the present work - one feels almost as if we are viewing the scene and its distant landscape through the camera's viewfinder. Namatjira crops the top of the monumental ghost gum which stands tall beyond sight, the pale green leaves cascading into view suggesting far-reaching branches above.
As Alison French observes, the trees in Namatjira's work are often subjects in their own right and play a pivotal role in leading our eye into the inner recesses of the image... In most instances, a giant river gum fills the frame to the left or right of the composition, in the shallow viewing space that Namatjira invites us to share. We gaze past this tree and the intervening middle ground to another motif: a mountain range...'1 Unlike in the works of many European artists of the time, in Namatjira's work, landscapes do not serve a purely decorative function, but as accurate 'maps' of his sacred ancestral Arrente Country for which he was custodian and both trees and mountain ranges are imbued with a spiritual presence.
1. Alison French, Seeing the Centre: The Art of Albert Namatjira 1902-1959, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2002, p. 117