Otto Pareroultja circa 1914-1973

Painted in the Hermannsburg region, Northern Territory in 1956
Private collection, United Kingdom

Framed behind glass. No visible repairs or restoration. Looks to be in very good condition overall. There are three 3mm round discoloured marks in the area of the right hand corner of the sky. Visible in catalogue illustration. These are not foxing.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Cf. Gray, A, R. Radford, K. Soriano et al Australia, London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2013, p.86, pl. 37 for similar work from the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Central Australian landscape with ghost gums, c.1968; also Ryan, J., Indigenous Art in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2002, p.30, pl.26.

Otto Pareroultja was one of the main exponents of the Hermannsburg Mission school of watercolour landscape painting initiated by his tribesman Albert Namatjira (1902-1959) in the early 1930s. Artists at the Lutheran mission, some eighty miles west of Alice Springs, were introduced to the technique of watercolours by the Melbourne based artist Rex Battarbee (1893-1973) amongst others. While their work became commercially popular, it was shunned by the mainstream art world that perceived it to be ‘inauthentic’ Aboriginal art and a minor, outdated art form. The recognition of cross-cultural perspectives from the 1980s onwards has led to a fresh interpretation of the work of the leading Hermannsburg watercolourists who were now seen to have transformed the European paradigm of landscape painting. The scenes they painted were not arbitrary but places of ancestral significance; rarely do they include evidence of human intervention. In the context of an Aboriginal world now dominated by Europeans, these artists are seen to be paying homage to their ancestral lands, just as their compatriots were doing using the lexicon of desert iconography in the traditional forms of rock painting, body painting, ritual ground mosaics and the decoration of ceremonial paraphernalia. Otto Pareroultja was one artist whose technique bridged the formal divide: his mark-making, the repeated curvilinear lines that give volume and roundness to tree trunks and hill sides, and the patterns of dappled shadow, have more in common with the graphic designs incised and painted onto sacred ceremonial objects than to conventional rendering of forms found in the landscape. This untitled landscape from 1956 is an outstanding example of Pareroultja’s confident expressive brushwork.

^WC