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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Australian Indigenous & Oceanic Art
• Sale Date:
  21 Jul 2015 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  41
• Lot Description:
  Mani Luki (Lawurriningamirri)
  (circa 1914-1980)
  Untitled (Ceremonial Figure) (1965)
  carved hardwood and natural earth pigments
  66.4 cm high
• Provenance:
  Dr George Allen Solem, United States of America(former curator at the Field Museum, Chicago); Tribalmania, United States of America; Aboriginal Art, Sotheby's, Melbourne, 24 November 2009, lot 124, illustrated; Private Collection, Sydney
• Notes:
  Mani Luki Lawurriningamirri, also known as Harry Carpenter (c.1914-1980), was renowned for his distinctive sculptures which typically depict figures wearing clothing and with articulated arms and hands. Isaacs suggests a Makassan influence in the stylization of Mani Luki's sculptures (Isaacs, J., Tiwi: Art, History, Culture, Melbourne: The Miegunyah Press, 2012, p.138): figures such as those illustrated in Isaacs 2012:68 are described as Makassan type. Mani Luki also made figures wearing variations on British naval uniforms dating from the early 19th century. He undertook several sculptural commissions in the course of his career and he features prominently in the Holmes Tiwi Collection at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory having carved the main figures in the ancestral Tiwi drama of Purukuparli, Bima or Wai-ai, Tapara and Jinani. See for example Tiered Figure illustrated in Isaacs 2012:138 and Bima carrying Jinani, c.1970 in Caruana, W., Aboriginal Art, World of Art Series, Thames and Hudson, London and New York, 2012, p.91, plate 75. Tiwi Ceremonial Figure is characteristic of Mani Luki's style: the head is relatively large in proportion to the body and the figure appears to be wearing a naga or apron in the Makassan style. Interestingly, the figure has no arms nor is there any evidence to suggest it may have had. Wally Caruana
• Estimate:
  A$10,000 - 15,000
• 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.