Kathleen Petyarre

Kathleen Petyarre (born circa 1930 - 1940) is an eminent Australian Aboriginal artist, known for her paintings displaying an extremely refined layering technique with intricate dotting. Her art refers directly to her country and her Dreamings, concepts that may be difficult to grasp for the non-Aboriginal viewer. However, the vastness of the country can be clearly felt in the landscapes of Petyarre's paintings which, for their visionary power, have occasionally been compared to the works of American Abstract Expressionists Jackson Pollock or Mark Rothko, and even to those of J.M.W. Turner. They have been described as "magisterial works that can be likened to symphonic compositions" (Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA). Given Petyarre's painstaking and virtuosic method of applying her countless dots with kebab sticks of various sizes, she typically spends many days, sometimes weeks on one canvas and has thus avoided the dangers of overproduction, wide-spread in Aboriginal art.

Kathleen Petyarre was born at the remote location of Atnangkere, an important water soakage for Aboriginal people on the western boundary of Utopia Station, 150 miles north-east of Alice Springs in Australia's Northern Territory. She belongs to the Alyawarre/Eastern Anmatyerre clan and speaks Eastern Anmatyerre, with English as her second language. Kathleen, with her daughter Margaret and her sisters, settled at Iylenty (Mosquito Bore) on Utopia Station near her birthplace. She started working in batik in 1977 when an adult education instructor, Jenny Green, arrived in Utopia and organised batik workshops. Kathleen Petyarre lives at Utopia Station to this day, but now also spends part of the year at her residence in Adelaide.

In 1996 she was the winner of the 13th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. Controversy arose in 1997 when Petyarre's estranged partner of ten years, Ray Beamish, claimed that he had had a hand in the execution of the winning painting. This controversy, which shook the Aboriginal art market at the time, resulted in much stricter emphasis being put on the documentation of authorship in Aboriginal paintings. Kathleen Petyarre's name was eventually cleared, and she retained her award.

Her considerable reputation as one of the most original indigenous artists has since been confirmed nationally and internationally by her regular inclusion in exhibitions at the most reputed museums and galleries. A book about her art, ' 'Genius of Place' ', was published in 2001 in conjunction with a solo exhibition of her works at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, and her paintings can be found in public and private collections all over the world. Her work has been selected, along with just a handful of Aboriginal artists, for inclusion in the permanent collection of the new Musée du quai Branly in Paris.

The last few years, from about 2003-2004 onwards, have seen a bolder style emerge, with clusters of larger dots and stronger lines alongside the very fine textures for which the artist is known. While this style has been decried in some quarters as being less refined, it has also been hailed as being a logical artistic development towards a more powerful and dramatic mode of expression, 'perhaps more abstract, certainly more modern in its technicality and presentation' [1].

Kathleen Petyarre is one of the most sought-after living Aboriginal artists. She has been repeatedly nominated by the influential journal Australian Art Collector as being among 'the 50 most collectable artists in Australia'. She has several sisters who are also well-known artists, among them Gloria Petyarre, Violet Petyarre, Myrtle Petyarre and Jeannie Petyarre. However it is Kathleen's works that consistently show the highest degree of innovation and are in the greatest demand, and they tend to fetch the highest prices at auctions (record price to date: $47,800 at Christies Melbourne 2005, for My Country - Hailstorm, 1998, 183x183cm).

Kathleen is the niece of great Aboriginal artist, the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye.


Awards

  • 1996 Overall Winner of the Telstra 13th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Darwin, NT, Australia.
  • 1997 Overall Winner of the Visy Board Art Prize, the Barossa Vintage Festival Art Show, Nurioopta SA, Australia.
  • 1998 Finalist, 1998 Seppelts Contemporary Art Award - Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, NSW Australia.
  • 1998 Winner, People's Choice Award, 1998 Seppelts Contemporary Art Award, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, NSW, Australia.


Selected Exhibitions

  • 1991 Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland
  • 1995 Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany
  • 1998 Arnkerrthe - My Dreaming, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne VIC, Australia, 24 July - 15 August
  • 1999 Recent Paintings by Kathleen Petyarre, Coo-ee Gallery, Mary Place, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 4 - 21 November
  • 2000 Kathleen Petyarre, Retrospective Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  • 2000 New Directions in Contemporary Aboriginal Painting, Songlines Gallery, San Francisco CA, USA
  • 2001 Genius of Place. The work of Kathleen Petyarre. Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney NSW, Australia
  • 2002 Gallerie Commines, Paris, France
  • 2006 Galerie Clément, Vevey, Switzerland
  • 2006 Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA
  • 2006 National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC, USA
  • 2006 Prism - Contemporary Australian Art at the Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan
  • 2007 Galerie Rigassi, Bern, Switzerland
  • 2007 Gallery Anthony Curtis, Boston MA, USA


Selected Collections

  • Musée des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie, Quai Branly, Paris, France
  • Musée des Confluences, Lyon, France
  • Kunsthaus - Sammlung Essl, Klosterneuburg, Austria
  • Aboriginal Art Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands
  • The Vroom Collection, The Netherlands
  • Seattle Art Museum, Seattle WA, USA
  • The Kelton Foundation, Los Angeles CA, USA
  • Harvard University (Peabody-Essex Anthropology and Ethnology Museum), Salem MA, USA
  • The Levi-Kaplan Collection, Seattle WA, USA
  • The Kluge-Rhue Collection, University of West Virginia VA, USA
  • Museum Puri Lukisan, Ubud, Indonesia
  • National Gallery of Australia - Collection of H. M. Queen Elizabeth II, Canberra ACT, Australia
  • Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney NSW, Australia
  • Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide SA, Australia
  • The Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth WA, Australia
  • The Museum & Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, Darwin NT, Australia
  • Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide SA, Australia
  • A.T.S.I.C. Collection, Adelaide SA, Australia
  • National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne VIC, Australia
  • University of South Australia Art Museum, Adelaide SA, Australia
  • Edith Cowan University, Perth WA, Australia

Artists