Well, I was pretty right about the Wynne Prize – giving Hubert Pareroultja the guernsey for his brilliantly-coloured, outsize Hermannsburg work in acrylics, as his illustrious forebear Albert Namatjira would never have attempted.
But I was dead wrong about the more famous Archibald Prize, going for the first time ever to a First Nations artist – Albert’s grandson Vincent Namatjira, also working a long way away from his forebear’s watercolours. For Vincent has deserted Hermannsburg and its patiently continuing ethos for the wilds of Indulkana which produces artist after artist who just love to break molds. And that’s what the Art Gallery of NSW’s trustees – who choose both Archibald and Wynne Prizes – have done this year as well, possibly more influenced by the politics of Black Lives Matter in these times than by Namatjira’s artistic oeuvre, which has surely captured himself and others – this time the racially abused Indigenous footballer, Adam Goodes – more effectively in the past.
The trustees did, however, select the best of several APY Lands canvases tackling the Seven Sisters Story – giving Nyunmiti Burton not only the newish Roberts Family Prize dedicated to ATSI artists, but also a Highly Commended in the Wynne behind Pareroultja.
Both Pareroultja and Namatjira were virtually assisted to accept their prizes in the digital ceremony – suddenly the Aussie art world is full of First Nations. “It’s only taken 99 years”, commented the wry Namatjira!
And 2021 will see more of these Archie artworks touring than usual, heading into Queensland as well as NSW.
