AIR: Albert Namatjira
Albert Namatjira
Arrernte people
Australia NT 1902–59
Untitled (Central Australian landscape) c.1955–59
Watercolour and pencil on paper
34 x 53.7cm
Purchased 2019 with funds from the Bequest of Helen Dunoon through the QAGOMA Foundation
Albert Namatjira conveys the time-worn topography and bright, clear skies of his traditional lands in radiant veils of watercolour. To this predominantly Western style of painting the Arrernte artist brings his own knowledge of Country.
![Albert Namatjira / Arrernte people / Australia NT 1902 - 1959 / Untitled (Central Australian landscape) c.1955-59 / Watercolour and pencil on paper / 34 x 53.7cm / Purchased 2019 with funds from the Bequest of Helen Dunoon through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Accession No: 2019.074 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Namatjira Legacy Trust/ Copyright Agency An oil painting of a Central Australian landscape, with a gum tree in the foreground.](/system/files/styles/wide/private/2023-12/2019.074_001.jpg?itok=UbGmI5dZ)
In Namatjira’s compositions, the white trunks of the ghost gums — Corymbia aparrerinja — twist and arch, narrowing into graceful branches and elegant arrays of leaves. Rendered in a faint wash of gently dappled lilac or yellow ochre, the bark appears to glow, illuminated by the white of the paper beneath.
The celebrated gums of Namatjira’s watercolours often display multiple trunks emerging from a single lignotuber. In their companionable habit and sharing of resources, these ghost gums gesture to the larger interdependence of all lifeforms, to the environment we share with each other and with plants and trees as they replenish the air we breathe.