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• Auction House:
  Deutscher and Hackett
• Sale Name:
  Important Aboriginal + Oceanic Art Auction
• Sale Date:
  04 Apr 2012 ~ 7pm
• Lot #:
  35
• Lot Description:
  Emily Kame Kngwarreye
  c1910 - 1996
  Untitled (Alhalkere), 1995
  synthetic polymer paint on cotton duck
  73.0 x 160.0 cm
  inscribed verso: artist's name, date and R. Gooch cat. RG18
• Provenance:
  Commissioned by Rodney Gooch, Alice Springs, October 1995; Sotheby's, Melbourne, 22-23 November 1999, lot 393; Galerie Boomerang, The Netherlands; Private collection, The Netherlands
• Notes:
  Emily Kngwarreye was a senior Amatyerre law woman from the community of Atneltyeye (Utopia), north-east of Alice Springs in central Australia. Although she began to paint on canvas on in her late 70s, her participation in ceremony and a lifetime of traditional cultural practice provided the basis of her artistic production. Her paintings are a tribute to the land where she was born (Alhalkere). Intuitive no doubt these works are, but her intuition is founded on decades of making art for private purposes, of drawing in the soft earth, of painting on people's bodies for ritual and ceremony.; Untitled (Alhalkere) 1995 is reductive in the use of her lexicon. Layers of broad brush strokes blanket an ochre ground, the palette consisting simply of ochre and white and the many hues between, creating layers of ochre, rust, burnt orange and cream. It is the gesture, the way the paint has been applied that dominates. This painting exudes energy as the sweeping lines take your gaze across the canvas. The thick arcs created by the sweep of the artist's outstretched hand describe a broad stretch of landscape. 'This is a striking instance of body and country becoming one a woman drawing her country within her body's reach.'1 1. Smith, T., 'Kngwarreye, Woman abstract painter', in Isaacs, J., et al, Emily Kngwarreye paintings, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998 p. 32 RELATED WORKS: "Untitled (Alhalkerre), 1995 in Neale, M., Emily Kame Kngwarreye: Ahalkere, Paintings from Utopia, Macmillan Publishers, Melbourne, 1998, p. 53, fig. 53, pl. 2, cat 76 for a closely related monumental painting in the same palette and executed by the artist as part of the same group of works commissioned by Rodney Gooch at Utopia in October / November 1995: Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, March 2009, lot 56"
• Estimate:
  A$50,000 - 70,000
• 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.