Rover Thomas

Rover Thomas
Born	1926 (1926) Western Australia, Australia
Died	11 April 1998 (aged 71–72) Warmun (Turkey Creek), East Kimberley, Western Australia, Australia
Nationality	Australian
Other names	Roba, Juluma, Joowoorroo/Juwurru
Occupation(s)	Stockman, artist
Known for	Painting
Notable work	'All That Big Rain Coming from the Top Side' (1991)'Railway Bridge, Katherine' (1984), 'Bedford Downs Massacre' (1985), 'Two men dreaming' (1985), 'The Story of Owl (Dumbiny)' (1988), 'Yari country' (1989), 'Barramundi Dreaming' (1989), 'Cyclone Tracy' (1991).
Relatives	Nyuju Stumpy Brown (sister)

Rover Thomas Joolama (c.1926 – 11 April 1998), commonly known as simply Rover Thomas, was a Wangkajunga and Kukatja Aboriginal Australian artist.

Early life

Rover Thomas was born in 1925 near Gunawaggii, at Well 33 on the Canning Stock Route, in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia.[1] At the age of 10 Thomas and his family moved to the Kimberley where, as was usual at the time, he began work as a stockman. Later in his life Thomas lived at Turkey Creek.

Rover Thomas and his Uncle Paddy Jaminji first started painting dance boards on dismembered tea chests for the Krill Krill ceremony in 1977.[2] Thomas was inspired to paint by a mystical experience of being visited by his deceased kinship mother after the disaster of Cyclone Tracy, which he interpreted as a warning against the decline of Indigenous cultural practices.[3] The Krill Krill ceremony included dances, songs and the painted boards tracing the woman’s after-life journey from her death near Derby back to the place of her birth near Turkey Creek.[4] He would return to the theme of Cyclone Tracy in a later work now in the National Gallery of Australia collection.[5]

East Kimberley School

In the early 1980s, Rover Thomas started painting ochre on canvas and soon became a pioneer artist of what was later known as the East Kimberley School.[6]

One series of paintings from this time depicted massacre sites from the frontier wars in the Kimberley. Notable works include 'Bedford Downs Massacre' and 'Camp at Mistake Creek'. A National Gallery of Victoria curator noted the works dual roles as history painting and landscape painting:

While these images describe actual events of cultural and social importance as remembered and passed down in oral history; they are at the same time, superb planer constructions of colour and form as in the dominant, central black shape and contrasting ‘country’ of Lake Paruku.[7]

Thomas likened the works of American abstract expressionist Mark Rothko to his own work saying: ‘That bugger paints like me!’.[8]

Rover Thomas was inspired by many East Kimberley artists who heed follow including Queenie McKenzie, Freddie Timms and Paddy Bedford[9]

Exhibitions

He was the subject of the important solo exhibition Roads Cross: The Paintings of Rover Thomas, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra in 1994.^[citation needed]

In 2000, Thomas's work was among that of eight individual and collaborative groups of Indigenous Australian artists shown in the prestigious Nicholas Hall at the Hermitage Museum in Russia. The exhibition received a positive reception from Russian critics, one of whom wrote:

This is an exhibition of contemporary art, not in the sense that it was done recently, but in that it is cased in the mentality, technology and philosophy of radical art of the most recent times. No one, other than the Aborigines of Australia, has succeeded in exhibiting such art at the Hermitage.[10]

Awards and recognition

In 1990 Thomas was awarded the John McCaughey Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.[11][12]

In 1990 he became the first Aboriginal Australian to exhibit in the Venice Biennale, alongside Trevor Nickolls.[13]

Collections

Thomas' work is held in many major collections, including:[11]

• Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
• Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
• Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
• Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of Western Australia
• Holmes à Court Collection, Perth, WA[14]
• The Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica, California, U.S.A
• Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, Northern Territory
• National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
• National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
• Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane

See also

• Indigenous Australian art

References

1. Murphy, Gráinne. "Rover's Legacy". Australian Museum. Retrieved 30 April 2012.
2. "Paddy Jaminji | Paddy (jampin) Jaminji | sell Paddy Jaminji | Tjamintji". Aboriginal Bark Paintings. 4 June 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
3. "Rover Thomas | Art Gallery of NSW".
4. "Rover Thomas: I want to paint | NGV".
5. "Rover Thomas [Joolama] 'Cyclone Tracy'".
6. "Rover Thomas | Rover Thomas Joolama | sell Rover Thomas | Julama". Aboriginal Bark Paintings. 31 May 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
7. "Rover Thomas: I want to paint | NGV".
8. "Rover Thomas | Art Gallery of NSW".
9. Thomas, Rover. (2003). Rover Thomas : I want to paint. Carrigan, Belinda., Christensen, Will., National Gallery of Victoria. East Perth, Western Australia: Heytesbury Pty Ltd. ISBN 0-9581792-1-2. OCLC 200378979.
10. Grishin, Sasha (15 April 2000). "Aboriginal art makes it to the top". Canberra Times.
11. "Rover Thomas Joolama - Sydney Harbour". Aboriginal Dreamings Gallery. Retrieved 10 March 2022.
12. "ROVER THOMAS (JULAMA) Bungullgi 1989". Menzies Art Brands. Retrieved 10 March 2022.
13. "Retrospective works display rare intensity". The Canberra Times. 12 March 1994. p. 7. Retrieved 1 December 2013 – via National Library of Australia.
14. "The Holmes à Court Collection". Holmes à Court Gallery. Archived from the original on 19 July 2008. Retrieved 13 January 2011.

Bibliography

• McAlpine, Lord Alistair (2002). Adventures of a Collector. Allen and Unwin. ISBN 1-86508-786-6.
• Van Den Bosch, Annette (2005). Australian Art World: Aesthetics in a Global Market. Allen and Unwin. ISBN 1-74114-455-8.

External links

• Rover Thomas at the Art Gallery of New South Wales