Bardayal Nadjamerrek circa 1926-2009

Painted in Oenpelli region, Western Arnhem Land circa 1970

Private Collection, Melbourne

Sotheby's Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, 26-7 June, 2000, lot 60 (AU640)

Fiona Brockhoff, Melbourne

Cf. Wally Caruana et al., Old Masters, Australia’s Great Bark Artists, National Museum of Australia, Canberra , 2013, pp. 65-71, for illustrations of related works. 

This painting is a rare, early example by one of the most esteemed bark painters of the last fifty years. According to Caruana, “Bardayal Nadjamerrek was taught rock painting by his father, Yajorluk, in the 1940s” (ibid. p.227), although did not turn his hand to creating art for the purposes of sale until the late 1960s. He is renowned for his exquisitely fine paintings of animals, ancestors, plants and spirit figures in the X-ray style of Western Arnhem Land. In 2004 Bardayal was awarded the Order of Australia in recognition for his contribution to Australian culture through his art and rock art research, and in the year after his death, honoured with a major retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. 

The bark is unframed and housed in an aluminium brace system. There is a crack emanating to the attachment hole in the lower right corner and another crack to the surface of the ark to the upper register above the right hand bird. No repairs or restorations. There are multiple small areas of flaking and pigment loss mainly found in the echidnas. It should be noted that the pigments do appear stable and are in virtually identical state as when last sold by Sotheby's
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