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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 #:
  140
• Lot Description:
  Dick Nguleingulei (Murrumurru)
  (1920-1988)
  Ubar Ceremony (Paintings 1, 2 and 3) (1967)
  natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark
  26 x 51 cm; 23 x 44 cm; 34 x 53 cm (3)
• Provenance:
  Painted at Oenpelli (Gunbalanya), Western Arnhem Land; Church Missionary Society, Oenpelli (C418; C417; C419); The Giffen Collection, United States of America
• Notes:
  The three labels verso read: 'Ubar Ceremony: Musicians, by Ngulei-Ngulei of Oenpelli'; 'Ubar Ceremony: Dancers, by Ngulei-Ngulei of Oenpelli'; 'Ubar Ceremony: Kangaroo Dancers, by Ngulei-Ngulei of Oenpelli'. A suite of related paintings such as this is rare in the oeuvre of Nguleingulei, one of the great bark painters of Western Arnhem Land who is renowned for his draughtsmanship, as seen in the highly animated figures in this series. The paintings are descriptive renditions of a Wubarr ceremony in progress. The Wubarr is a regional ceremony of the Kunwinjku and Kuninjku peoples of Western Arnhem Land, which may have been the most popular in the region prior to the introduction of other ceremonies such as the Mardayin (Taylor, L., Seeing the Inside: Bark painting in Western Arnhem Land, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996). The chief protagonist in the ceremony is the ancestral kangaroo Nadulmi and the ritual concerns notions of fertility and the cycles of nature. In these paintings, the dancers are depicted in lines hopping in imitation of kangaroos: the feather headdresses they wear indicate that these figures are intended to represent ancestral beings. The musicians are shown playing didjeridu, clap sticks and the Wubarr drum or hollow log. In the third painting, three figures dance to the rhythm created by a clap stick player: the two central figures appear wearing their dancing belts. Nguleingulei belonged to a group of artists who identified themselves as the ÔKunwinjku-Dangbon schoolÕ, that included the famed rock and bark painter Lofty Bardayal Nadjemerrek (c.1926-2009), whose lands lie along the southern edges of Kunwinjku territory (Taylor 1996:80). On occasion they shared camps, either on their traditional lands or at the township of Oenpelli (now Gunbulanya). Both artists have appeared in several major exhibitions including Kunwinjku Bim: Western Arnhem Land paintings from the collection of the Aboriginal Arts Board at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1984: Dreamings: The art of Aboriginal Australia at The Asia Society Galleries, New York, in 1988; and most recently in Old Masters: AustraliaÕs Great Bark Artists at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra. Wally Caruana
• Estimate:
  A$12,000 - 18,000
• 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.