Watercolour Country

100 works from Hermannsburg

The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Fed Square

Level 3

Until 14 Apr | Free entry

This exhibition brings together one hundred watercolours made by Aranda, Western Aranda, Eastern Aranda and Kemarre/Loritja artists working at Ntaria/Hermannsburg, across generations. Among these are key new acquisitions by Albert Namatjira, one of Australia’s most well-known artists, whose landscapes are synonymous with the Central Australian outback. An important recent gift of seventy-seven watercolours by former NGV trustee, the late Darvell M. Hutchinson AM, make up a significant portion of the exhibition.

This collection represents the ethereal beauty of Aranda Country and the cultural stories that are embedded within the landscape, depicted throughout history and into current day. A range of enduring subjects, including distant eucalypt trees, the blue mountains, rock formations, and slender ghost gums, come together to create a unified and comprehensive depiction of these distinctive traditional lands.

The exhibition features many artists who produced work over more than half a century, such as Gerhard Inkamala, Cordula Ebatarinja – one of the only women to have a career as a painter during the boom period of the Hermannsburg School – and contemporary artist Benita Clements.