Artist Unknown THE MAN, NOULABIL

Painted in Western Arnhem Land in 1948
Collected at Oenpelli on the American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land
Charles P. Mountford
Harold L. Sheard, South Australia; thence by descent

Charles P Mountford, Records of the American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land, vol 1: Art, Myth and Symbolism, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1956, pp.187-188, pl.51, illus.

The painting has been executed on a coarsely prepared bark sheet typical of works painted during the American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land. It has ripped edges and a significant hole in the upper right register (these imperfections are all evident in the 1956 publication illustration). The bark is attached to a plywood board with 6 screws. The bark was framed for many years behind glass which may account for surprisingly bright and in stable condition of the pigments, although there are some small areas of pigment loss and instability.There are no visible signs of repair or restoration.
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Cf. Bark paintings of similar ancestral or spirit beings are illustrated in Mountford, 1956, p.188, pl. 51. See also a painting of a spirit being, possibly Namarnde, collected by Baldwin Spencer in 1912, in the collection of the Museum of Victoria, in R.M. Berndt (ed.), Australian Aboriginal Art, Sydney: Ure Smith, 1964, pl.64, illus.

This important bark painting was formerly in the collection of South Australian anthropologist Charles P. Mountford and acquired during the ground-breaking American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land in 1948. In the1950s the works of art collected on this expedition were distributed to the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society in Washington DC, and by the Commonwealth of Australia to the leading state and national art galleries in Australia. The expedition was planned, arranged and lead by Mountford, then a member of staff of the Department of Information; at the time it was the largest expedition ever organized in the history of Australian research. Mr Frank Setzler of the Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution was the deputy leader of the expedition. The expedition set up camp sites at Groote Eylandt, Yirrkala and Oenpelli documenting cave paintings, myths and songs and collecting bark paintings and artefacts. Mountford retained a number of works for his personal collection.

According to Mountford (1956:187) Noulabil is a 'peaceful fellow' who lives with his wife and family in the hollow of a large tree at the base of the Arnhem escarpment. Noulabil is wary of Namarrkon the Lightning Ancestor who once 'shattered' his home with blows from his stone axes. In this painting the ancestor or spirit being Noulabil is depicted in X-ray style to reveal the skeleton, with the torso decorated in rarrk or cross-hatched clan designs. The figure is wearing a feather in his hair to indicate an association with ceremony; indeed, the posture of the figure may reflect a choreographed pose in ritual.