Battarbee and Namatjira

by Martin Edmond

Battarbee and Namatjira is the double biography of artists Rex Battarbee and Albert Namatjira, one white Australian from Warrnambool in Victoria, the other Aboriginal, of the Arrernte people, from the Hermannsburg Mission west of Alice Springs. From their first encounters in the early 1930s, when Battarbee introduced Namatjira to the techniques of watercolour painting, through the period of Namatjira’s extraordinary popularity as a painter, to his tragic death in 1959, their close relationship was to have a decisive impact on Australian art. This double biography makes extensive use of Battarbee’s diaries for the first time, to throw new light on Namatjira’s life, and to bring Battarbee, who has been largely ignored by biographers, back into focus. Moving between the artists and their backgrounds, Edmond portrays the personal and social difficulties the two men faced, while at the same time illuminating large cultural themes – the traditions and legacies of the Arrernte, the influence of the Lutheran church, the development of anthropology and the evolution of Australian art.

Genres: Australia, Art

352 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2014

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A biography of someone who worked in the creative arts, IMO, doesn’t just evoke the life of the subject, it also explains something of what it was that made the subject special. From that wonderful biography of Beethoven by Jan Swafford which I reviewed some time ago, I have learned not just about the chronology of Beethoven’s life and its cultural context, as well as when and why he composed certain pieces, but also about the development of that quality that made his music unique – what Swafford calls ‘Beethovenish’. Well, in this very readable dual biography of the painters Rex Battarbee (1893-1973) and his Aboriginal protégé Albert Namatjira (1902-1954), Martin Edmond not only tells the fascinating story of their entwined lives, but he also explains the unique quality in Namatjira’s water colours that excited his mentor and made him the most famous Aborigine in the world.

The book begins with an introduction to the Arrernte, their beliefs, their lifestyle and kinship systems and how their art was an integral part of religious and cultural life, and then moves on to the Lutherans in Australia, and how they came to be active in missionary work in Central Australia in the period relevant to this book. There is an account of Battarbee’s childhood, and the war service which left him maimed, and also of Namatjira’s early life at the Hermannsburg Mission and how he came to be both Christian and an initiated man with cultural responsibilities. The intriguing first meeting between the two is a reminder that we mostly don’t know the significance of events until long afterwards; there are a number of times when this meeting may have occurred, but it’s not clear.

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2015/01/17/ba...

[Cheryl Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of elegantly expressed perceptions. Background information on the worlds the two men inhabited and details about the Lutheran church as well as descriptions of paintings and art practice.

I learned s lot snd I'd like to see more of these painting or see them again.

The book is also s sad chronicling of mistakes and misplaced or misgiven or perhaps misapplied care and I learn a little
More about racism in Australia.

A beautiful account containing intriguing suggestions about the anthropomorphism that may be partially hidden in Namatjira 's painting.7

[Christina Houen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a loving and sensitive account of the relationship of Rex Battarbee and Albert Namatjira. Rex was a South Australian farmer who suffered terrible injuries in the First World War. He resurrected himself to become an artist and eventually, the man who met and recognised Albert's gift as an artist. He mentored him until Albert had become a greater artist than he could ever be. The book is about the lives and pathways of the two men, which converged for a while. It is also about the trajectory of Albert through fame into a somewhat embattled existence.  His status as an artist was not enough to shield him from the tensions between white law, his family obligations,  the commercialisation of his art, and the ill health that beset him in his last years.

But his triumph is his art. Edmond suggests that his far-seeing eyes enabled him to transform the immense vistas

"from space into time: so that, when we look into the far reaches of a Namatjira landscape we are looking back in time towards the beginning..."

The book is also a tribute to the modest, ethical, intelligent man who recognised Namatjira's gift and fostered it without taking ownership of it or trying to turn him into a clone of himself.

I recommend the book to anyone who loves the central desert landscape and its artists, and especially, the art of Namatjira.