OTTO PAREROULTJA

THE WALLENT COLLECTION OF HERMANNSBURG WATERCOLOURS AND EPHEMERA, PART 1  (Lot 15 - 23)

The collector Oswald A. Wallent spent most of the 1930s and 1940s serving in the Lutheran Mission in

New Guinea. From 1946 to 1949 he and his wife Ella, and their three young daughters went to Finke River Mission at Hermannsburg where he worked as a storeman and accountant. Oswald was the son of F. C. G.Wallent (pictured) of Tanunda, South Australia, who had spent 45 years working on missions including Bethesda at Killalpaninna and Finke River Mission at Hermannsburg, where he was responsible for the purchase of supplies and where he served on the Lutheran Mission Board

The school of watercolour painting at Hermannsburg was beginning to flourish at the time Oswald arrived and he supported the emerging artists by acquiring their work and staging exhibitions. With the Melbourne artist Rex Battarbee (1893-1969),Oswald joined the Pareroultja Arts Committee which sought to protect the artists’ rights and set fair prices for their work. After he left Hermannsburg, Oswald continued to champion the cause of equality for Indigenous Australians. Oswald and his family returned to Hermannsburg in the 1960s

The documentation of this collection of watercolours and artefacts is meticulous. It includes brief biographies of the artists, an assessment of their talents and abilities as painters, as well as comments

on individual works. In all the collection contains 38 watercolours by 17 artists including Albert Namatjira, his sons Ewald and Enos, his tribal brother Henoch Raberaba, and the three Pareroultja brothers Otto, Edwin and Reuben

Albert Namatjira was to become the doyen of the watercolour movement. His Hermannsburg Mission with Mt. Hermannsburg in the background, painted in 1936 or 1937 (see lot 23) was one of the artist’s first accomplished works and was given to F. C. G.Wallent. The painting is remarkable in Albert’s oeuvre in that it depicts the presence of Europeans within the landscape. As his career progressed, Albert favoured painting the landscape as the pristine environment whereby he could pay homage to his ancestral lands for a public audience, much in the same way the artists at Papunya and other desert communities have done