(28 July 1902 – 8 August 1959), born Elea Namatjira, was one of Australia's most acclaimed visual artists. He was a Western Arrernte man, an Indigenous Australian of the Western MacDonnell Ranges area. Albert Namatjira is one of Australia's great artists, and perhaps the best known Aboriginal painter.
Though in his early career, his use of artwork that he painted a wide variety of subjects, he is best known for his watercolour Australian outback desert landscapes, a style which inspired the Hermannsburg School of Aboriginal art. While his work is obviously the product of his life and experiences, his paintings are not in the highly symbolic style of traditional Aboriginal art; they are richly detailed depictions. He is also notable for being the first Northern Territory Aborigine to be granted Australian citizenship in the sense of being freed from the restrictions of discriminatory legislation that made Aborigines wards of the State.
Albert Namatjira was born in 1902. He was educated at Hermannsburg during the Strehlow years and lived in the boys’ dorm. He was indoctrinated into the Lutheran faith, however, he was also an initiated Aranda elder. He became a famous painter, although his foray into white society was marked by tragedy. See the Australian Dictionary of Biography online reference for a full biographical portrait.
NOTE: The Scherer collection contains a number of interesting parcels of original and unpublished Namatjira materials - photographs, correspondence, business records. Do we want to make mention of this as it has not yet been fully explored and utilised?
