Vincent and Vincent, 2022. Synthetic polymer paint on linen, 122 x 304 cm. Photo: Iwantja Arts
Art is in Vincent Namatjira’s blood. Namatjira is the great-grandson of renowned Western Aranda watercolourist Albert Namatjira, who, as Vincent explains, ‘was one of the first Aboriginal people to really be noticed and acknowledged by non-Indigenous Australians.’ Vincent Namatjira has since forged his own path in the art world by establishing himself as a witty and subversive portraitist. Though he spent his childhood in Perth after his mother died, he returned to Central Australia as a young adult to reconnect with his roots, his community and the work of his great-grandfather.
Since 2013, Vincent has been painting portraits of important figures, both personally familiar and famously political. His paintings offer a wry look at the politics of history, power and leadership from a contemporary Aboriginal perspective. In recent years, Vincent Namatjira’s work has gained significant recognition and in 2020, he became the first Indigenous artist to win the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Vincent Namatjira offers an in-depth exploration of the prolific artist, guided by Namatjira himself. This timely monograph showcases his iconic series on Indigenous soldiers, Indigenous leaders, power and the Royal Family, giving us an insight into his world view. Essays from friends and collaborators further contextualize Namatjira’s first-hand narrative to complement the artwork as it appears on the page.
In this extract from Vincent Namatjira, Bruce Johnson McLean of the National Gallery of Australia sheds light on Vincent’s artistic lineage and how it continues to influence his work.
From left to right: Vincent Namatjira in the Iwantja Arts studio, Indulkana, with Albert Namatjira, Slim Dusty and Archie Roach on Country, 2022. Photo: Rhett Hammerton. / Self-portrait on Friday, 2017. Synthetic polymer paint on linen, 152 x 122 cm. Image © Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2017 Archibald Prize Finalist
Painting is in my blood – my great-grandfather Albert Namatjira changed the face of art in Australia. I feel his influence when I paint, especially when I paint our Country. [...] The connection runs deep though, and it has shaped who I am as an artist. I’m proud to be continuing the Namatjira legacy. - Vincent Namatjira
The story of Albert Namatjira is possibly the most widely known of any Australian artist. In one short lifetime his story encapsulated the experience of Aboriginal ambition, Aboriginal excellence and Aboriginal adaptation to a new world while met equally with the experiences of Aboriginal disempowerment and Aboriginal disadvantage. It is within Namatjira’s family, his network of numerous descendants, where his story is still held and felt the most. It remains a constant source of pride, passion and pain.
One of the most recent artists from the Namatjira lineage to make their mark is Vincent Namatjira, whose portraiture provides an incisive commentary on politics within Australia and internationally. It is no surprise that Namatjira’s first forays into portraiture focused on the life of his great-grandfather, a man whose life was so heavily and publicly controlled by the racial and social politics of mid-century Australia.
Vincent and Albert on Country, 2021. Synthetic polymer paint on linen, 76 x 152 cm. Photo: Iwantja Arts
Through the early- to mid-1900s, many artists based in Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney would travel to Central Australia to capture the ‘real’ Australia in images. A little over 100 kilometres to the west of Alice Springs, Hermannsburg – a German Lutheran Mission established at a site along a southern branch of Tjoritja (the Western MacDonnell Ranges) – became a favourite destination for many city-based artists seeking spectacular arid landscapes. Following their painting trip, some artists left behind their works to be viewed as miniature exhibitions in the Mission buildings, and it is here that Albert had his first personal encounter with Western art.
Albert was well known to be the best craftsman in the region, excelling at every craft – traditional or contemporary – that he had so far had the opportunity to engage in. Albert was also a hardworking entrepreneur by necessity, trying his hand at many roles to generate income for his young family through a period of great drought and famine to which he lost at least one child. Upon understanding that these artists earned good money for their paintings, both the artist and the entrepreneur in Albert were committed to the pursuit of becoming an artist and he offered his services as a guide and porter in return for a few weeks’ painting tuition should the artists return. [...] The rest, as they say, is history.
Displaced, 2021. Synthetic polymer paint on linen, 152 x 198 cm. Purchased in celebration of the National Gallery of Australia’s 40th anniversary, 2022, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Photo: NGA
I believe in the power of art, the power of the paintbrush. I know that art can change lives – it changed mine – and I hope that art can change the world too. - Vincent Namatjira
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Nearly eighty years after Albert began painting, a new descendant and a great-grandson began painting; first in a Western Desert landscape ‘map’ style then in a portraiture style. This great-grandson, Vincent Namatjira, had found himself dislocated from family, community and Country at a young age after a family tragedy took the life of his mother. Removed to Perth and raised in the foster care system, Vincent often prefers not to remember this ‘hard’ period at all.
On reaching his late teens, Vincent decided to travel back to Ntaria (Hermannsburg) to find his place in the world. Returning to his homeland, he drew strength from his reaffirmed connections to culture, language and Country, and devoted much of his time to land management issues. On a trip through the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY Lands), he met his soon-to-be wife, Natasha, and settled with her family at Kanpi. Natasha’s father, senior artist Kunmanara (Jimmy) Pompey, introduced Vincent to painting.
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From left to right: Self Portrait at the British Museum, 2018. Synthetic polymer paint on linen, 167 x 112 cm. Purchased 2018, Telstra Collection, MAGNT. Image courtesy of Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory / Merinda Campbell. Photo: Merinda Campbell / The Royal Tour (Self Portrait 2), 2020. Synthetic polymer paint on linen, 76 x 51 cm Photo: Iwantja Arts
Vincent also continued to visit Ntaria, where he would watch his aunt, the late Eileen Namatjira – a leader of the Hermannsburg Potters – paint and create art about their Country. The iconic pots made by the Hermannsburg Potters often incorporate the landscape in homage to Albert, on top of which important animals or historical figures take pride of place. Their works evoke the earliest works by Albert which featured animals and people central to the composition, animating Country. These moments had a resounding impact on Vincent and he soon began to incorporate these important familial styles and narratives into his own works.
For me, portraiture is a way of putting myself in someone else’s shoes as well as to share with the viewer what it might be like to be in my shoes. I use portraiture to look at my identity and my family history. It’s also a way for me to look at the history of this country, to ask who has the power, and why? - Vincent Namatjira
Unknown Soldiers, 2018. Synthetic polymer paint on linen, 6 panels, each 122 x 91 cm. Photo: Iwantja Arts
One of Vincent’s pivotal early works Albert and Vincent (2014) was the result of the artist’s visit to the Queensland Art Gallery in May 2014 to view the work Portrait of Albert Namatjira (1956) by Sir William Dargie. Previously, Vincent had seen the work only as a low colour reproduction. As a portrait painter whose early work was so often inspired by the image and cultural impact of his great-grandfather, Vincent had such a strong desire to view the Archibald Prize-winning portrait that he made his first big trip out of Central Australia since returning as a teen. Travelling with fellow artist Eric Barney, Vincent unfolded a small directors-style chair and spent many hours with the work, sitting in quiet reverence in the Australian art galleries. He opened a bag and pulled out a small mirror – leaning it against a plinth on which Daphne Mayo’s Olympian c. 1946 stood – so that he could view and sketch himself with the portrait of his great-grandfather. Taking his sketches home to the APY Lands and finishing the work there, he imbued it with the conflicting emotions so often evoked by Albert’s stories, giving the portrait a celebratory feel while retaining a sombre sensibility.
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Albert Namatjira, Slim Dusty and Archie Roach on Country, 2022. Synthetic polymer paint on linen, 167 x 198 cm. Photo: Iwantja Arts
In a sense, Vincent’s paintings help to take the Namatjira story full-circle – those parts of his early career that Albert was unable to realise are now being fulfilled by his descendant eight decades later. It’s interesting to imagine both Albert and Vincent walking into the small stone building in 1934, one man being enthralled by paintings of Country, the other engrossed in paintings of kin. Today, both Namatjiras are recognised as leading artists within their respective genres: Albert as the great landscape painter of Australia’s interior and Vincent as one of Australia’s most important contemporary portraitists.
Words by Bruce Johnson McLean.
Vincent Namatjira is available now.
