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'Stolen Generations' Had Amazing Talent
Rediscovered artwork sheds new light on Australia's shame.
After languishing in gallery archives for thirty-eight years the Picker Gallery in Colgate, Australia has recently unearthed a selection of drawings and paintings by mixed-race children. 65 drawings pastels and watercolours were found in April 2004 by Howard Murphy and a further 48 drawings were discovered earlier this year by gallery staff.
Donated to the gallery in 1966 by Colgate alumnus, Herbert A. Meyer the art is the work of Noongar or Nyungar children from the south-western region of Western Australia. Housed in the Carrolup settlement they were part of the 'stolen generation' whereby as many as 100,000 mixed-race children were forcibly removed from their aboriginal families from 1910 to the early 1970's.
The artwork has been correctly identified by Dr Howard Morphy, Director of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National University. Dr Morphy said 'the Carrolup Youth, were, for a time, relatively well known as artists. In fact, the Carrolup art was so distinctive and technically sophisticated that the children's work toured Europe in the 1950's to considerable acclaim.' Labels preserved on the backs of the original frames indicate that they were exhibited in London in the early 1950's.
Although several of the artists went on to create art as adults many more ended up in menial jobs, were institutionalised or died early.
Athol Farmer, an Aborigianl artist who recently visited the paintings on show at the Picker Gallery until November 7 said, his own style was influenced by the Carrolup settlement, adding, 'Some Noongars are direct descendants of the artists, others feel the pull of a shared history that provokes both bitterness and pride.'
The child artists were the subject of a 1952 book by British patron, Florence Rutter and Australian writer M.D.Miller entitled Child Artists of the Australian Bush. The book included reproductions of the work plus photographs of and interviews with the artists. The jacket stated, 'of badly fed, badly housed children, belonging to a so-called backward race, who inexplicably produced beauty in the midst of squalor, and who displayed amazing artistic talent.'
Read more about the 'Stolen Generations' here:
