Jarinyanu David Downs 1925-1995

Acquired from the artist by Stephen (Steve) Hawke in 1983
Niagara Galleries, Melbourne
Private collection, Melbourne
Sotheby's, Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, 31 July 2006, Lot 91
The Luczo Family Collection, USA

Blue Chip III, The Collectors Exhibition, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 27 February - 31 March 2001, catalogue No. 16

Overall excellent condition, housed in pale timber wooden box frame. Pigments are in the main stable, pigment loss to some areas of dots around perimeter of painting, particularly apparent mid-way up the right hand side edge, just below the centre. A few of dots appear unstable, this is something that is often found on natural earth pigments painted in the Kimberley region in the 1980s.
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Cf. Sotheby's Important Aboriginal Art, 28th June 1999, lot 211 for a similar painting by the artist executed in 1990 depicting the Yapurnu story-cycle with specific reference to the Dreamtime activities of Jakarra.

The artist’s long-term agent, the late Duncan Kentish, described the subject matter depicted in this painting as follows. “This image is a depiction of Yapurnu country, south of Balgo, showing a complex of inter-linked salt-pans, some of which are edged with a meandering white shore-line of crystals like mica. At the same time, this looming figure represents old man Yapurnu, boss for this country, loosely displaying great strands of long grass tied into his hair and plastered with mud. When boys have reached manhood they are painted and dressed up in a manner similar to this representation. Each initiate holds long poles in each hand tied with foliage at intervals, representing the salt-pan lakes. The diagonal marking across the figure indicates the Jangkarti skin-group which is also that of Jarinyanu, the painter.”

This work originally belonged to Stephen (Steve) Hawke, son of former Prime Minister of Australia, Robert J. (Bob) Hawke. Steve Hawke arrived in the Kimberley region as a young activist at the age of 19 and lived there from 1978 to 1991.