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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Australian Indigenous & Oceanic Art
• Sale Date:
  22 Jul 2014 ~ 6.30pm (Part 1 - Lots 1 - 198)
  23 Jul 2014 ~ 2.30pm (Part 2 - Lots 199 - 331)
• Lot #:
  73
• Lot Description:
  Emily Kame Kngwarreye
  (circa 1910-1996)
  Untitled (1993)
  synthetic polymer paint on canvas
  185.5 x 119 cm
• Provenance:
  Commissioned by Rodney Gooch, Alice Springs (16-1193); Barry Stern Gallery, Sydney; Private Collection, Sydney
• Notes:
  Rodney Gooch (1949-2002), who commissioned this painting, was a mercurial art advisor who nurtured Emily Kame KngwarreyeÕs entry into the world of modern art. Gooch had gone to Alice Springs in 1979 where, in 1983 he was employed by the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA), originally to record and promote local Aboriginal musicians. He set up the CAAMA shop and in 1987 was appointed the advisor to the Utopia WomenÕs Batik Group that had been formed in 1978 soon after these women re-established themselves on their traditional lands. Emily Kame Kngwarreye was a leading member of that group. Gooch developed an affinity with the artists of Utopia and devised a series of projects including Utopia, A Picture Story that included 88 batiks which were acquired by the Holmes ˆ Court Collection, followed by an exhibition of 100 paintings, A Summer Project: Utopia WomenÕs Paintings at the SH Ervin Gallery, Sydney in 1989. In that year CAAMA introduced an Artists-in-Residence program where the first participants were Emily Kame Kngwarreye and Louie Pwerle (born c.1938), and Gooch was instrumental in other Utopia projects such as Art, Cars and Landscape in which artists created paintings on found car parts, shown at William Mora Gallery, Melbourne. In the summer of 1989/90 Gooch initiated the body painting series where 77 artists painted body designs onto oval-shaped canvases. Gooch left CAAMA in 1991 to manage the Mulga Bore ArtistsÕ Enterprise at Akay (Mulga Bore) and he became an independent agent for a number of Eastern Anmatyerre and Alyawarre artists. In 1998 he donated the Rodney Gooch Collection to the Riddoch Art Gallery, Mount Gambier, and in 2002 he donated the Rodney Gooch Personal Collection to the Flinders University Art Museum. The collections total about 600 works. GoochÕs legacy is summed up by Philip Batty: ÔÉ it was his willingness to actively participate with Aboriginal artists in developing new ideas and approaches to their art É that has left an imprint on the development and formation of Central Australian Aboriginal Art É RodneyÕs most important contribution was to understand the nature of É cross-cultural relationship(s) and to work with the people of Utopia to produce new forms of Aboriginal art.ÕÕ (P. Batty in Salmon, F. et al, GoochÕs Utopia: collected works from the Central Desert, Flinders University Art Museum and Riddoch Art Gallery, Adelaide and Mount Gambier, 2008, p. 31). Untitled, 1993, is one of the major works commissioned of Emily Kame Kngwarreye by Gooch. It captures her bold use of colour and the freshness and spontaneity of her mark making. The composition is tightly knitted through a combination of the structure of the under-painting overlaid with lines of staccato brush marks. This work was painted during a period when Kngwarreye was at the peak of her career. The award in 1992 of the Australian Artists Creative Fellowship allowed her the opportunity to experiment and expand on her visual and chromatic vocabulary. 1993 was the year in which she painted the awe-inspiring The Alhalkere Suite which graces the walls of the National Gallery in Canberra, and My Country in the Sir Elton John Collection (see Neale, M. et al, Emily Kame Kngwarreye. Utopia: The genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, 2008, plates C-7 and C-8, pp. 156-7 and 158-9 respectively). See also Untitled, 1993, in the collection of the Riddoch Art Gallery in Salmon 2008:23, and Untitled, 1993, in the Sue and Ian Bernadt Collection in Carrigan, B. (ed.), Utopia: Ancient Cultures, New Forms, Heytesbury and Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 1998, p. 46. Wally Caruana
• Estimate:
  A$80,000 - 120,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.