White on black: The Australian aborigine portrayed in art

by Geoffrey Dutton

Hardback

Genres: Art

168 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Born into a prestigious pastoralist family in South Australia, Dutton served in WWII and studied at Oxford, before becaming a leading light of 20th century Australian writing. His own fiction and poetry received awards in his lifetime, but his legacy has been in his non-fiction writing. His works included extensive texts on the history of Australian literature, art, politics, culture, biography, and travel. Known to all of the great minds of his generation, including his long-time best friend Patrick White, Dutton's influence helped to shape post-war Australian literature, and he received the Order of Australia in 1976. His output was featured in at least 200 books, including 40 solo works, by the time of his death.

Dutton worked behind the scenes as well, as an editor for Penguin and co-founder of Sun Books, and was crucial in founding the Adelaide Festival of the Arts.

Dutton married Ninette (Trott) in 1944, and she played a vital role in his writing and research during their 40-year marriage. After their divorce, Dutton married the writer Robin Lucas. Although he had lived most of his adult life in South Australia, the elder Dutton spent time in Mudgee, New South Wales researching in the late 1980s before moving south again.

In the 1990s, Dutton gave his influence to the Australian Republican Movement, then taking shape during debate over the best direction for the country in the 21st century. Dutton died in 1998, living long enough to see the founding of National Sorry Day, a key component in reconciliation with Aboriginal Australians, but not quite long enough to take part in the referendum on Australia's future, where the cause for republicanism was defeated 45.13% to the monarchy's 54.87%

Reviews

[Sammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Geoffrey Dutton was a legend. This is a beautiful collection of colour and black-and-white plates of the depiction of Aboriginal Australians by Europeans in art, ranging from the first settlers and French explorers, through Tom Roberts, Arthur Boyd, and propaganda cartoons, to works contemporary to the book's publication in the 1970s.