Artist’s Hand: Collectors’ Eye

Since 2002, David and Anita Angel have gifted to the NGV over 100 contemporary Indigenous works, which are displayed together for the first time in Artist’s Hand: Collectors’ Eye: The Angel Gift. The works by senior male and female artists from the Western Desert, the Kimberley and the Tiwi Islands, date from 1990 to now. This period has witnessed immense change in Indigenous art practice, notably the emergence of Indigenous women as artists of consequence and invention, as seen in work of Wakartu Cory Surprise, Jean Baptiste Apuatimi and Naata Nungurrayi. Also notable has been the forging of pared down forms of expression that has enabled Pintupi male artists, such as Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri and Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula to distil the specificity of place. The hand and vision of individual masters is a mark of this exhibition that attests to the power and spiritual aura of Indigenous art and affirms the importance of benefaction to the NGV Collection of Indigenous art.