Lot 16
Yirawala(circa 1897-1976)Untitled (Female Figure), c.1965
2 December 2025, 18:00 AEDT
SydneyAU$12,000 - AU$18,000
Ask about this lot
Alex Clark
Head of Sale, Senior Specialist
Merryn Schriever
Managing Director, Australia
Yirawala (circa 1897-1976)
Untitled (Female Figure), c.1965
natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark
74.0 x 51.0cm (29 1/8 x 20 1/16in).
natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark
74.0 x 51.0cm (29 1/8 x 20 1/16in).
Footnotes
PROVENANCE
Likely painted on Minjilang (Croker Island), Western Arnhem Land
Private collection
Sotheby's, Sydney, 25 November 2007, lot 33
Private collection, Western Australia
Sotheby's, Sydney, 18 October 2011, lot 81
Annandale Galleries, Sydney
The Sarick Collection, Canada
'The acknowledged master of western Arnhem Land bark painting is Yirawala, who belonged to the Naborn clan of the Marrkolidjban region on the Liverpool River. A strong advocate for the rights and aspirations of Aboriginal people in the face of threats to culture and land through missions, mining and Western materialism, Yirawala used his art to preserve and continue traditions, and to open the eyes of the settler population to the richness, sophistication and contemporary relevance of Aboriginal society, culture and law.
Yirawala grew up learning the traditional ways of his culture. His father, Nowaritj - a significant spiritual leader of his clan - taught him his people's songs, stories, designs and the meanings of the dynamic rick paintings in the westerns Arnhem Land rock escarpment galleries. By the 1950s Yirawala was living on Minjilang (Croker Island) and was already an acknowledged senior ceremonial leader, a law and medicine man, and a leading creator of bark paintings...
Yirawala's early bark paintings were directly connected to the rock art of the western Arnhem escarpment, and included images of elongated animated spirit figures: mimih, sorcery figures and ancestors in human and animal form. As he grew in ceremonial status, Yirawala began to paint detailed renditions of sacred body designs from ceremonies such as the Mardayin, Lorrkon and Wubarr. When he became a ceremonial leader, he had the authority to not only replicate these powerful ancestral designs but also to elaborate, re-compose and innovate upon this significant visual repertoire'
Franchesca Cubillo, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2010, p. 119