Emily Kame Kngwarreye was born around 1910 at Alhalkere (Soakage Bore). Emily is an Eastern Anmatyerre speaker and one of the senior artists of the Utopia-n Art Movement. She was adopted by Jacob Jones an important lawman in the Anmatyerre community and worked as a stock hand on pastoral properties in this area, showing her forceful independence. At this time women were only employed for domestic duties.
Emily, like many other women at Utopia moved into painting with acrylics during the summer of 1988-89 with 'A summer Project'. Emily moved happily into the new medium from her work in batik on silk as painting allowed her to explore techniques and vision with her artistic expression. Her painting reflects the layered transparency of batik, but her colour is translucent and has been built up through many touches of paint which overlap and meet to create an illusion of depth and movement.
Although her works relate to the modern art tradition, this resemblance is purely visual. The emphasis on Emily's paintings is on the spiritual meaning, based in the tradition of her people. At first she painted aspects of her culture that is sacred, falling foul of the tribal elders. That is when she moved into painting her culture as a whole. Though many Aboriginal paintings are focused on Dreamings, Emily chose to present a very broad picture of the land and how it supports their way of life. These images embrace the whole life story of myth, seeds, flowers, wind, sand and 'everything'.
"Whole lot, that's the whole lot. Awelye (my Dreamings), Alatyeye (pencil yam), Arkerrthe (mountain devil lizard), Ntange (grass seed), Tingu (a Dreamtime pup), Ankerre (emu), Intekwe (a favorite food of emus, a small plant), atnwerle (green bean), and Kame (yam seed). That's what I paint; the whole lot."
The form that these take in her paintings are lively and moving. Colours merge and change form to communicate a strong cosmological message. She has gone from particular subjects to show abstraction of her complete world, moving her beyond her cultural roots.
Emily is one of the most successful artists to come out of Utopia and is arguably amongst the most important Australian painters of the last decade. Emily, in her 80th year was described by the art collector, Michael Hollows, as being one of the most unusual and graphic of all Australia's renowned Aboriginal artists.
Her work is featured in all Australian state galleries and most reputable private collections in Australia, and is seen regularly in exhibitions and collections around the world. A host of solo exhibitions in the 90's has provided Emily with a significant plateau of fame, exceeding that of most Aboriginal artists of her time.
Emily's gift as an artist has touched many people but it was her personal presence that left the greatest impact. The Hollow family had the privilege of knowing Emily on a personal level, being able to watch her paint and talk to her about her own opinions of fame.
On the 2nd of September 1996 Emily passed away, a great loss to the art world and those people who knew her personally or through her paintings.
Awards:
1992: Australian Artists Creative Fellowship
“When you consider that she never studied art, never came into contact with the great artists of her time and did not begin painting until she was almost 80 years of age, there can only be one way to describe her. She was just a genius.”
– Akira Tatehata –Director, National Museum of Art, Osaka
A portrait of the famous Emily Kame Kngwarreye
Tim Jennings, owner of Mbantua Gallery, first met Emily in the late 1980’s when she was part of a women’s group working in batiks, a few years before she began painting in acrylics. He was close to Emily and members of her extended family right up until her death in 1996 and recalls her being a strong minded woman even though she spoke very little English.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was a senior custodian for Alhalkere country. She began painting quite late in her life and had first been introduced to silk batik with a group of women from Utopia in 1977. Emily had been working with and exhibiting batik in Australia and abroad between 1977 and 1987 before taking up acrylics on canvas.
Canvas gave Emily and the other artists a greater freedom of expression to experiment with different styles in which to portray their Dreaming stories. Because batik had been the first medium that the artists at Utopia had really experimented with, and it being rather a 'one-hit' medium, they developed quite contrasting styles on canvas and Utopian Art now has probably the most diverse range of styles than any other Aboriginal Art.
A portrait of Emily Kngwarreye with her painting. Emily's trademark style of superimposed bold gestural dotwork, sometimes overlaying linear patterns derived from Ceremonial body paint designs, would have been technically impossible in batik. In this way, Kngwarreye, as an artist, was able to fully express her Country and Dreamings more accurately, as she had been taught.
"Emily’s work has been regularly compared to the New York abstract expressionists Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko. A principal distinction the critics make, and it is key to understanding the acclaim surrounding the paintings of the Utopian artist, is that Kngwarreye is better, more profound."- Sydney Morning Herald, 31/5/08
Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s paintings are described by leading international art academics as being equal to the works of Monet, and other great Impressionist and Abstract artists such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Rothko.
Experts have argued that Earth’s Creation is a more important painting for Australia than Jackson’s Blue Poles, the highly controversial American work that put the National Gallery of Australia onto the world stage in 1973, and remains one of its most celebrated works today.
Earth's Creation Aboriginal Art
Earth’s Creation was painted by a genius Australian, with no formal or even informal training in art. She knew nothing of any other schools of art - she’d never even seen another painting. She had barely 20 or so words in English. She spoke in ancient Australian languages, Anmatyerre and Alyawarr. She painted “everything” in a way that was never done before, and has never been seen since.
“What’s important is that she never would have visited anything like New York, she was a product of a very, very remote community. So there are similarities in style, but her source was entirely different - her work was rooted deeply in her culture and deep in Australia’s desert.” -
Emily Kame Kngwarreye Untitled oil on linen 30.25 h x 22 w in (77 x 56 cm) Inscribed to verso 'Dacou EK493 FT-EK493'. Provenance: Fred Torres, Dreaming Art Centre of Utopia (DACOU), Adelaide | Theodore Bruce Auctioneers & Valuers, Brompton, 18 November 2013, Lot 88 | Private Collection This work will ship from Los Angeles, California.
KNGWARREYE, Emily Kame (Aboriginal c.1910-1996) 'Awelye,' 1991. Signed and inscribed verso. The work relates to tracks of the yam roots and the final stages before maturity during an abundant and wet summer. Acrylic on Canvas 193x118cm PROVENANCE: Utopia Art, NT, cat #EKK535 (literature and image of artist with work included); private collection, Victoria.
EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE (B.c 1910-1996) MY MOTHER'S COUNTRY Indigenart, catalogue number DSC 00002 and certificate of authenticity accompanies this artwork Synthetic polymer on canvas 124 x 176cm Estimate $60,000/80,000 AUD
EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE (1910-1996) Alalgura Profusion inscribed and dated '93 K041 Emily Kngwarreye commissioned by Delmore TVU27' (on the reverse); inscribed and dated '93 K041 Emily Kngwarreye' (on the overlap) synthetic polymer paint on canvas 59 x 38 1/8 in (150 x 91.8 cm) Painted in 1993
EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE (1910-1996) Anooralya II inscribed and dated 'Emily Kngwarreye Commissioned by Delmore Gallery 92 G016 Emily Kngwarreye' (on the reverse); inscribed and dated '92 G016' (on the overlap) synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen 47 1/4 x 118 1/8 in (120 x 300 cm) Painted in 1992 For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
EMILY KAM KNGWARREYE 1908-1996 Mourning (1991) synthetic polymer paint on canvas inscribed ‘COMMISSIONED by /DELMORE' verso 226 x 128.5 cm PROVENANCE Emily Kam Kngwarreye, Alice Springs Delmore Gallery, Alice Springs (stock 1Y30), commissioned from the above Private Collection, Queensland, acquired from the above
EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE (1910 - 1996) "My Country" Acrylic on canvas. Painted in 1995. Provanence; commissioned for Desert Art Gallery, Alice Springs. Comes with Certificate of Authenticity. Artwork is framed and ready to hang. 68cm x 119cm
Terrain Dreaming Provenance:Galerie Boomerang, Amsterdam, synthetic polymer on canvas, 110x92 cm (116x97 cm incl. frame), signed 'Emily', stamped and with inscriptions (on the reverse), Emily Kame Kngwarreye (c.1910-1996)
Untitled Provenance:-Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne.-Galerie Boomerang, Amsterdam, synthetic polymer paint, 84x54 cm (89x63, 5 cm incl. frame), inscribed with the Australian Gallery of Dreams' inventory number 'A.G.O.D. # 4338' (on the reverse), Emily Kame Kngwarreye (c.1910-1996)
Emily Kame Kngwarreye (c.1910-1996) My Country , inscribed with the Aboriginal Gallery Of Dreamings' inv. no. 'AGOD #5744' (on the reverse), synthetic polymer on canvas, unframed, 91x120 cm Painted in 1996 Provenance:-Acquired in 1997 from Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne.-Private Belgium collection, The work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued in 1997 by Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye (c.1910-1996) Yam Dreaming, inscribed with the Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings' inv. no. 'A.G.O.D. #5568' (on the reverse), synthetic polymer on canvas 182, 5x91, 5 cm (188, 5x97, 5 cm incl. frame) Painted in 1996 Provenance: Acquired in 1999 from Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne, by the present owner.Exhibited: Utrecht, Aboriginal Art Museum, ‘Het oog van Simon Levie’, March - Oct. 2003, The work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued in 1999 by Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye Alhalkere (Utopia) A Ceremonial Expression 1994 Acrylic on linen Grass Seed Dreamings are a celebration of the plants and seeds used by the women of Alhalkere (Utopia) to make food and medicine. These plants have helped the desert people to survive their traditional nomadic lifestyle in one of the harshest environments on the planet. This work showcases Emily Kame Kngwarreye's signature brushstroke technique and her use of pink, teal, white and brown are in keeping with her taste for unusual colours intermixed to create movement.
PROPERTY FORMERLY FROM THE COLLECTION OF DR MICHAEL & MRS PATRICIA BERNARD, MELBOURNE EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE (c1910-1996) Yam Dreaming 1996 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 122.0 x 152.5 cm; 124.5 x 155.5 cm (framed) bears inscription verso: #5514 accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne
Emily Kame Kngwarreye began painting at the age of seventy-nine and in just eight years completed no fewer than four thousand works of art. Her artistic achievement, miraculous in its strength and powerful appeal, owes much to the inspiration of Indigenous spirituality and the magical creation stories that underpin its belief systems. Her first paintings, created in 1989, were characterised by finely dotted surfaces painted over intimate traditional symbols and linear tracing. As her work progressed, any evidence of under-painting disappeared beneath increasingly gestural fields created by employing larger and larger brushes. By the mid-1990s, the runnels of dotted colour across the surfaces of her more abstract works began to be more formally arranged in parallel lines, as in this particularly magnificent work of the period which was exhibited in her first international solo exhibition at the Oude Kerk,Amsterdam in 1999, opened by Simon Levie, Director of the Rijks Museum. By the time she passed away on September 2nd, 1996, her fame had achieved mythic status. Emily was an artistic superstar, the highest-paid woman in the country who had left one of the most significant artistic legacies of our time. Emily Kngwarreye was one of Australiaâsâ three representative artists at the Venice Biennale in 1997, the year following her death, and the subject of a touring retrospective exhibition mounted by Margo Neale for the Queensland Art Gallery. A retrospective exhibition âUtopia: The genius of Emily Kngwarreyeâ was presented by the National Museum of Australia and toured Japan in 2008. The sale of her masterwork âEarthâs Creation Iâ(1995) by CooeeArt Marketplace in 2017 for $2.1 million, stands as the record price paid at auction for any work of art by an Australian female artist.
Emily Kame Kgwarreye produced paintings constantly throughout the last eight years of her life, and while she was always happy to go back and produce a work from an earlier stylistic period, a chronological walk through her paintings reveals a line of development that connects them all. Her early style featured visible linear tracings following the tracks of the Kame (Yam) and animal prints with fields of fine dots partially obscuring symbolic elements and playing across the canvasâs surface. By 1992, her fine dotting and symbolic under-painting gave way to works in which symbols and tracks were increasingly concealed beneath a sea of dots until eventually, they were no longer evident at all. She began using larger brushes to create lines of dots that ran across vibrantly coloured, haptic surfaces. These works became progressively visually abstracted and ethereal. By the mid-1990s, Emily had developed a style of painting euphemistically referred to as âdump dumpâ works, which she created by employing larger and larger brushes. Later, Emily's paintings became more and more structured, as she moved away from depicting country as cloud-like amorphous colour fields. She began applying paint in tracks of colour across the surface of the works rather than underneath as she had prior to 1993. Paintings of this period can be seen, in hindsight, as a transition toward her 'line' paintings that began to emerge the following year. In this painting, Emily has represented a vast area of her country. We can see ochre pits and areas of the Spinifex grass that when burnt, regularly scars the landscape, as well as the arteries of old creek beds that flow with the coming of summer rains.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye's paintings of wildflowers reflect a stage in the growth cycle of the wild yam. Emily's middle name, Kame, is taken from the yam Dreaming site at Alhalkere. The nutritional value of the yam is hidden underground, in the swollen roots and their pod-like attachments which are difficult to locate as the plant's unpredictable growth patterns make harvest complicated and specialised. Traditionally, much effort is expended across large areas in the harvest of this valuable food.
In this work, commissioned by Rodney Gooch in Alice Springs during 1995. Emily depicted the root system of the complex mass of roots that stretch underground spreading up to 12 metres from the yam plant at its centre. At ground level, the yam exhibits bright green leaves with yellow flowers and its branches cover a great deal of surface area. It is found in woodlands, close to water sources. The yam is most abundant after rainfall, when the root system develops rapidly. Several months later, the plant dies off and Indigenous women look for cracks in the earth indicating where the roots and tubers are located. Often, large areas are excavated in their search to find the edible tubers of the plant. Once found, the yams are taken back to the community, where they are eaten raw or cooked. They have a rather bland taste but make a filling meal. In the Yam Dreaming, the Emily is paying homage to the spirit of the yam plant, so that it regenerates year after year to feed people.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye Alhalkere (c. 1909-1996) My Country 1994 Acrylic on canvas Inscribed verso with the artist's name Corbally Stourton Contemporary Art Ltd Certificate of Authenticity: Cat. No. CSCA 168
EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE (B.c.1910-1996) MY COUNTRY Aboriginal Desert Art catalogue number 18078-1-93-EEK-123-96 and certificate of authenticity accompanies this artwork Acrylic on canvas 96 x 136cm Estimate $22,000/28,000 AUD
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was born at Utopia station in a remote desert community almost 300 km north-west of Alice Springs. Before beginning her professional painting career in the late 1980âs, she worked at Utopia as a batik artist for around 10 years. Her career as a painter was as prolific as it was passionate, and after several years she had established herself both locally and internationally. She died in September 1996 leaving behind a remarkable story of inspiration, a profound and invaluable legacy to the art world. Emily went through many different individual styles during her short eight-year career as a professional painter. By the 1990âs early works with intimate tracking and animal prints interspersed with fine dotted colour fields, gave way to running dotted lines over cloud-like ethereal landscapes, and parallel horizontal and vertical stripes, representing ceremonial body painting, in a wide array of colours. Within a year she began using larger brushes than previously and by 1993 she began creating floral images in a profusion of colour by double dipping brushes into layers of paint resulting in variegated petals in hepatic profusion. Her formal body painting line images yielded to the serendipity of scrambling yam roots and, in the final months of her life, to colour fields painted with large flat brushes that are simply brilliant in their assuredness and utter simplicity. While her preoccupation was the life cycle of the Yam in all of its seasonal manifestations and the womenâs ceremonies that celebrated its importance and their responsibility as its custodians, Emily painted many interrelated themes and species. In her own words, she painted: âWhole lot, thatâs all, whole lot, awelye, arlatyeye, ankerrthe, ntange, dingo, ankerre, intekwe, anthwerle and kame. Thatâs what I paint: whole lot. My Dreaming, pencil yam, mountain devil lizard, grass seed, dingo, emu, small plant emu food, green bean and yam seed.â In 1995, Fred Torres (Aboriginal art dealer and son of Emilyâs niece, Barbara Weir) initiated a workshop on the Utopia clan lands in which Emily created the masterpieces, Earthâs Creation I and Earthâs Creation II. The workshop was held during a period in which Emily was creating wildly colourful canvases by double-dipping brushes into pots of layered paint. Despite her age, Emilyâs physicality was evident as she painted. Often with a brush in each hand she simultaneously pounded them down on to the canvas spreading the bristles and leaving the coagulating paint around the neck of the brush to create depth and form. In preparation for this workshop Torres and Weir prepared large canvases by hand-sewing individual panels together in such a way that Emily could paint a single painting that could later be unpicked and stretched onto several interlocking and adjoining frames. Of these, Earthâs Creation I, the major triptych measuring 632 x 275 cm, was included in her touring retrospective exhibition curated by Margo Neale for the Queensland Art Gallery in 1998. The painting was offered for sale in 2007 and sold for $1.056 million. On the request of the National Museum of Australia, Earthâs Creation I was subsequently loaned to tour in Tokyo and Osaka in Japan in 2008, and exhibited at the National Museum in Canberra in 2008. It was exhibited in the Great Hall of Parliament House in Darwin before heading to its new home in Alice Springs. In 2015 the work was exhibited in the Giardini Central Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale,âAll the Worldâs Futuresâ, curated by Okwui Enwezor. Earthâs Creation I, was subsequently sold at auction in 2017 through Cooee Art for $2.1 million, breaking the record it had set in 2007 for the highest sale price achieved by an Australian female artist. Earth's Creation II, the work on offer here, was painted in the same workshop. The palette is cooler and the overall impression more subdued, yet it lacks none of the spiritual intensity and vision of her larger work. The reduced palette of predominately blue and white, with touches of red, gives the impression of floodwater after rain. From every part of the work, its sublime orchestration engages the eye with dazzling energy and flowing movement. The painting is a luminous celebration with a mystical, ethereal presence. Itâs about her life, her story, her country. Itâs about her universe and the mythologies that inform the Dreamings. Filled with mystery, it pays reverence to the sacredness of the Earth, the seasons, vegetation, people, the epic adventures of her spiritual ancestors, and ceremonies that she daily engages with in her life. Together, Earthâs Creation I and Earthâs Creation II can be seen as companion pieces. Both works exhibit an assurance in execution that was based upon Kngwarreyeâs inseparable link to her country and its ceremonies.
Beginning late in 1991 and throughout the following years, Emily explored a range of techniques after largely abandoning the fine dotting and submerged linear tracking which had characterised her earlier works. She used larger brushes to create broader circular dabs of paint, which often involved 'double dipping' the brush in various colours, before attacking the canvas. In this work, she shows tremendous confidence and great subtlety of colour in rendering the floral profusion throughout her desert homeland after summer rains. The linear application of broad dotting creates swathing rhythm across the canvas. Despite the sweeping gestural flourishes, the resultant image contains considerable nuances, which evoke the physical and spiritual fertility of the land, and radiance of being, that is sought during ceremony.
Emily Kgwarreye produced paintings constantly throughout the last eight years of her life, and while she was always happy to go back and produce a work from an earlier stylistic period, a chronological walk through her paintings reveals a line of development that connects them all.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye began painting at the age of seventy-nine and in just eight years completed no fewer than four thousand works of art. Yet, she never went to art school, never looked through art books, and rarely went to galleries. Her first experience of serious painting was the making of boldly fluid marks on the greased skin of her countrywomen. Her artistic achievement, miraculous in its strength and powerful appeal, owes much to the inspiration of Indigenous spirituality and the magical creation stories that underpin its belief systems.
