drawing
- Museum number
- Oc2006,Drg.685
- Description
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Drawing; view of a tree covered landscape at sunset, with a fence running across the landscape, and a tall tree in front of the fence.1945-1953.
Pastel.
- Production date
- 1945-1953
- Dimensions
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Height: 45 centimetres (drawing)
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Height: 47 centimetres (frame)
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Width: 28.90 centimetres (drawing)
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Width: 30.30 centimetres (frame)
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- This drawing is part of a collection of seven drawings held by the British Museum which were created by Noongar children living at the Carrolup River Native Settlement near Katanning, Western Australia between 1945-1953. The children began drawing in 1945 when Carrolup school's new headmaster Noel White introduced evening art classes. The drawings gained much attention not just in Australia but also in the UK. Florence Rutter, became a patron after visiting Carrolup. She was involved in holding exhibitions of Carrolup drawings in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. The Carrolup school closed in 1951 (reopening as Marribank Baptist Aborigines Mission in 1952) and only a few of the children continued to make art. The drawings are an important part of Australian art history.
It seems likely that Mrs K Willet may have acquired these drawings when they were exhibited in 1952 in London at Foyles Art Gallery. Other collections of Carrolup drawings are held by the Berndt Museum in Perth and Curtin University, Western Australia. The latter were held by the Pick Art Museum at Colgate University in New York State but after being located in their collections in 2004, they were repatriated in 2013 to the Noongar people of Western Australia, where they are cared for by the John Curtin Gallery in tandem with the Carrolup Elders Reference Group.
For more information see:
Durack Miller, M. and Rutter, F. 1952. Child Artists of the Australian Bush. George Harrap and Co Ltd.
Rutter, F. 1952. An exhibition of Australian Aboriginal Children's Art. London, Foyles Art Gallery.
Pushman, Tracie and Walley, Robyn Smith 2006. Koorah coolingah - Children long ago. Berndt Museum of Anthropology Occasional Paper No. 8, University of Western Australia, Nedlands.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1986
- Acquisition notes
- Seven drawings were purchased from Mrs K Willet in 1986.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc2006,Drg.685
- Additional IDs
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Miscellaneous number: 8