PADDY BEDFORD CIRCA 1922- 2007 | Ngarrmaliny-Cockatoo at Police Hole

Painted in 2003 at Crocodile Hole for Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia
The Laverty Collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in September 2003
Bonhams, The Laverty Collection: Contemporary Australian Art, Sydney, 24 March 2013, lot 88
The Dennis and Debra Scholl Collection, Miami

Melbourne, The Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia at Federation Square, 2004 Australian Culture Now, 8 June - 1 August 2004
Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art Paddy Bedford, 6 Dec 2006 to 15 Apr 2007, and additional venues:
Perth, Art Gallery of Western Australia: 12 May – 22 July 2000
Bendigo, Bendigo Art Gallery: 11 August – 16 September 2007
Brisbane, University Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane: 16 November 2007 – 1 March 2008
Nevada, Nevada Museum of Art, No Boundaries: Aboriginal Australian Contemporary Abstract Painting, 13 February to 13 May 2015, and additional venues:
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, 20 June to 16 August 2015
Pérez Art Museum, Miami, 17 September 2015 to 3 January 2016
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, 18 January to 15 May 2016
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, New York, 9 June to 14 August 2016

Linda Michael (ed.), Paddy Bedford, exh. cat., Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p.97 (illus.), p.153 (illus.)
Linda Michael, '2004: Australian culture now in Melbourne', Art Monthly Australia, August 2004, no. 172, p.25 (illus.)
Charles Green (ed.), 2004 Australian Culture Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2004, p.106 (illus.), p.211
Peter Anderson,'Honk4Art', Australian Art Review, November 2004 - February 2005, p.91 (illus.)
Colin Laverty and Elizabeth Laverty et al., Beyond Sacred: Recent Painting from Australia's Remote Aboriginal Communities - the collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne, 2008, p.21 (illus.)
Colin Laverty and Elizabeth Laverty et al., Beyond Sacred: Australian Aboriginal Art - the collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Edition II, Kleimeyer Industries, Melbourne, 2011, p.245 (illus.)
Henry F. Skerritt, ed. et al, No Boundaries: Australian Aboriginal Contemporary Abstract Painting, Prestel Verlag, Munich-London-New York, 2014, p.37 (illus.)

Signed “PB” and bears Jirrawan Arts catalogue number PB 7-2003-157 on reverse. Natural Earth Pigments and synthetic binder on Belgian linen on stretcher, unframed. Please note, there are some scuffs around the edges consistent with normal wear and tear; very minor scuffing approximately 2cm long at the top right corner edge and a small scratch in the pigment approximately 2cm long through the white dots 4cm in from the left hand side. Otherwise, the work is in excellent condition overall with no visible evidence of repair or restoration.
"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."

‘My paintings have law.’¹ Paddy Bedford adhered strictly to the tenet of painting only the country he had inherited rights to and he would continuously distinguish whose country he painted: his father’s, his mother’s or his grandparents’. Consequently, his paintings could preserve Gija law within the landscape and within his art. However, Paddy Bedford strictly avoided depicting the iconography of ceremony, the designs painted onto people’s bodies or etched into the ground. Rather, his paintings are influenced by the physicality of the land: features such as rocky outcrops, hill tops, sweeping plains, freshwater springs and rivers, even signs of European presence, are translated into a personal visual language of forms, free floating and anchored in intuitive but deliberate compositions constructed within the picture frame. The compositions reflect a view of the landscape that is simultaneously plan, map-like, and profile as one standing in country.

Ngarrmaliny (the Gija name for Police Hole) is a place associated with Ngayilanyji, the ancestral White Cockatoo, in the Ngarranggarni (Dreaming). Ngayilanyji had prevented a large group of men from travelling south beyond Gija country into the foreign lands of the Gooniyandi people in the southern Kimberley. Ngarrmaliny lies on Foal Creek in Paddy Bedford’s father’s country.

In the latter years of his life, Bedford allowed his paintings to breath through the assured ease of his brush marks within more open compositions. This stands in contrast to the treatment of the same subject in earlier paintings: Cockatoo, 1999, and Jaworraban–Cockatoo Dreaming of 2002 in the Kaplan and Levi Collection.² Despite the variety of compositions on the one Cockatoo Dreaming theme, Michiel Dolk argues that ‘…the association of motif with place is clearly recognizable.’⁴

WC

1 Frances Kofod, ‘Places in Paddy Bedford Country’ in Michael, L. (ed.), Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p.132

2 Cockatoo, 1999, is illustrated in Michael, L. (ed.), Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p.71; Jaworraban–Cockatoo Dreaming, 2002, is illustrated in ibid. p.82 and in McCluskey, P. et al., Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art: Kaplan & Levi Collection, Seattle Art Museum and Yale University Press, Seattle and New Haven, 2012, plate 3, p.59

3 Michiel Dolk, ‘Are we strangers in this place?’, in Michael 2006, p.41