Emily Kam Kngwarray Anmatyerr language group, circa 1914-1996
Untitled, 1996
Synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen
59 ½ x 35 ½ inches (151 x 90 cm)
Photo: Courtesy of D’Lan Contemporary
Provenance
The Artist, painted at Delmore Downs Station, Northern Territory, July 1996, cat. no. 96G029, (signed Donald Holt)
Delmore Gallery, Northern Territory
The Laverty Collection, Sydney, purchased from the above in October 1996
Bonhams, Sydney, The Laverty Collection: Contemporary Australian Art, 24 March 2013, lot 165
Private Collection, New York
D’Lan Contemporary, Melbourne
Collection of Steve Martin & Anne Stringfield, New York
Exhibitions
Utopia: The Genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan, 26 February - 13 April 2008; The National Art Centre, Tokyo, Japan, 28 May - 28 July 2008; National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 22 August - 12 October 2008
Laverty 2, Newcastle Region Art Gallery, Newcastle, 14 May - 14 August 2011
The Colin and Elizabeth Laverty Collection - a selection of Indigenous and non-Indigenous art, Geelong Gallery, Geelong, 18 February - 15 April 2012
Emily, D'Lan Contemporary, High Line Nine, New York, 4 - 12 March 2020
60 over 50: 60 Paintings from 50 Years of Australian First Nations Art, UOVO, New York, May 2023
Publications
Colin Laverty, Diversity and Strength: Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Art - A Private Collection, Arts of Asia, November - December 2003, p. 88 (illus.)
Margo Neale and Benita Tunks, Utopia: The Genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Tokyo: Yomiuri Shinbun Tokyo Honsha, 2008, (Japanese edition), p. 99 and p. 101 (illus.), p. 239; Canberra: National Museum of Australia Press, 2008 (English edition), p. 193 (illus.)
Colin Laverty and Elizabeth Laverty, Beyond Sacred: Recent painting from Australia's Remote Aboriginal Communities - the Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Melbourne: Hardie Grant Books, 2008, p. 95 (illus.)
Colin Laverty and Elizabeth Laverty, Beyond Sacred: Australian Aboriginal Art - the Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Edition II, Melbourne: Kleimeyer Industries, 2011, p. 103 (illus.)
Djon Mundine, Travelling from Utopia, Art Monthly, issue 250 'Critical Lining', June 2012, p. 41 (illus.)
Vanessa Merlino and Luke Scholes, 60 over 50: 60 Paintings from 50 Years of Australian First Nations Art, UOVO, 2023, p. 12-13 (illus.)
“Towards the end of her eight-year career, between 1989 and 1996, Emily Kngwarray swiftly moved through several stylistic transitions. Her early style of dotting, the measured, precise and intense built-up layers, eventually morphed and changed over time, softening, flattening and merging until, eventually, the dots disappeared altogether.
Before her last stylistic period of tangled painterly strokes, Emily had given in to her ageing body’s protests against the physically demanding practice of repetitive dotting and revisited the economic qualities of the line. The under-tracking of the yam roots characteristic of her early paintings had returned as the singular focus. Emily’s relationship with her medium and tools transformed at the end of her career and life. During this stylistic period, referred to as ‘sacred grasses’, the fist grips the brush tight as it urgently pushes and pulls the paint.” (Vanessa Merlino and Luke Scholes, 60 over 50: 60 Paintings from 50 Years of Australian First Nations Art, 2023, p. 12)
Related artworks
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Emily Kam Kngwarray, Untitled (Alhalkerre), 1995 -
Emily Kam Kngwarray, Kame Yam Awelye, 1996
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Emily Kam Kngwarray, Alhalkere - Old Man Emu with Babies, 1989
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Emily Kam Kngwarray, Merne Everything VI, 1994
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Emily Kam Kngwarray, Untitled, 1990
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Emily Kam Kngwarray, Untitled (Alhalkere), 1990
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Emily Kam Kngwarray, Song of the Emu, 1991
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Emily Kam Kngwarray, Mourning, 1991
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Emily Kam Kngwarray, Untitled – Alhalkere, 1992
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Emily Kam Kngwarray, Untitled (Alhalker), 1993
