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Collecting Aboriginal Prints
Collecting Aboriginal art is, for the most part, just like collecting any other object or art form. As with any art, an
A selection of limited edition prints available from the Australian Art Print Network
individual piece is attractive to the buyer according to its aesthetic value, but its real financial value will depend on the renown of the artist, their resume, and where the particular work fits in to the artist's oeuvre. Aboriginal art, however, has an additional overlay. It is important to recognise the artist's age and seniority within his or her own tribe and their position in the historical development of the Aboriginal art movement.
There are literally thousands of Aboriginal artists, at least 500 represented in major gallery collections, and more than 50 identifiable traditional tribal styles. While this may seem to be a maze for the uninitiated it is really not all that difficult to demystify.
Whether you are buying for pleasure, or for investment, the field of Aboriginal art is diverse and full of visual surprises. It falls generally in to three categories: images executed in natural earth pigments; acrylic 'sand' paintings, and urban 'contemporary' art.
Aboriginal Prints
Since the early 1980's artist's, whose work fits in to each of these categories, have embraced the mediums of lithography, etching, linocut, woodcut and screenprinting in collaboration with fine art print making studios. As a result all of these artistic styles are now represented in limited edition prints.
Collecting limited edition prints is much the same as collecting works in other media. Look for a good print by a good artist and you can't go far wrong. Printmaking is usually a collaborative arrangement for many indigenous artists who choose to work along side a master printmaker. These master printmakers are highly trained artisans in their own right so their skill and reputation is an important factor in the printmaking process.
Traditional Artforms
Traditionally, artists from Australia's far north paint with earth pigments (ochres ground from rock) to create figurative, minimalist and abstracted works on bark, art papers, canvas and linen, as well as making wooden sculptures decorated in ochres along with utilitarian and ceremonial items. The work, which ranges from Arnhem Land's classic X-ray art and other styles derived from cave painting, to the ochre canvases and boards originally carried in ceremonies in the Kimberley, has often been characterised as 'ethnographic', but it is as contemporary in its rendering of ageless mythological images and stories as any 'Western' art.
Desert 'sand paintings' often generally referred to as 'acrylics' because of the medium used, are so named because of their derivation from ceremonial, low relief ground constructions made in the desert sand. These are painted on canvas or high quality Belgian linen by tribal people throughout the Central and Western deserts. Like Arnhem Land art, they are referred to as 'traditional' because they come from communities where Aboriginal people continue to live a relatively traditional lifestyle and practice their ancient ceremonies to this day. Desert paintings range from the highly decorative and geometrically formal Anmatjerre tribal works, to the bold, linear and vibratory images of the Kukatja, Warlpiri and Warlmatjarri people, each tribe has its own recognisable style and within it each artist's work is individually identifiable. The best of these artists' work is exhibited and collected by major public and private art galleries and institutions around the world.
Collectable urban Aboriginal work is strongly identity based and may make references to traditional themes, politics, or contemporary situations and issues. These artists work in similar ways to their European contemporaries while drawing on their own cultural origins. If you are attracted to this urban art it is important to remember that it is improper for any Aboriginal artist to appropriate tribal imagery that does not come from their own particular tribal group. For this reason it is important when looking at this type of 'contemporary' art to look for an individual style reflecting the artist's heritage.
Whether you are looking at canvasses, barks or prints you will recognise, in time, the various regional styles and style of the individual artists.
Collecting
If you intend to spend an extended period in Australia, contact the main Aboriginal galleries in your city and ask to be put on their mailing list to receive invitations.
Many of these galleries show prints, however, if you are a dedicated print collector and visiting Sydney, you should call in to Aboriginal Art Prints who have, by far, the largest range of current editions and secondary market prints by indigenous artists from all over Australia.
Look in the best bookshops for the many excellent books currently in print. Two indispensable references are Vivien Johnson's Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert (link to book) which lists most of the important desert artists with their background, and the small Thames and Hudson paperback Aboriginal Art, written by the former curator of the National Gallery of Australia's Aboriginal collection, Wally Caruana. Another excellent small book of the same name is published by Phaidon and written by noted scholar Howard Morphy. However there are a large number of books currently available which cover individual art styles and in some cases individual important artists which are beautifully illustrated. A few hours browsing in a good bookshop will be both fun and highly informative.
Check the books section on this website. These titles and a wide selection of other books can be ordered online. To help narrow your choice, all the books are referenced by region, artist, subject and themes.
During the past 30 years many individual collectors and museums have, with the help of expert Australian curators and gallery directors, developed extremely fine collections of Aboriginal art. These are now located in every Australian capital city and overseas including Seattle, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Vienna and many many more.
Value
While you can buy a painting for as little as $50, the highest price paid for an Australian Aboriginal painting has been $770,000. It is therefore vital, should you want to buy a fine individual work, or go on to develop a good collection, to know who you are dealing with, what you are collecting and consider your budget.
Generally, the work of important Aboriginal artists has increased in value markedly over the past 30 years. Prudent buyers who develop a good relationship with specialist galleries can not only get an enormous amount of pleasure from collecting and living with the art of the world's oldest continuous living culture, they can be assured their investment is secure. In fact many collectors purchase the work of prominent artists through their personal superannuation funds or under leasing arrangements, while others trawl the galleries for that special work and then try to arrange the terms to pay it off.
Collecting Aboriginal Prints
While the price of barks and canvasses by our better known indigenous artists are beyond the budget of many people, collecting prints is an affordable way of being able acquire an original work by one of these artists at a fraction of the cost.
The National Gallery of Australia, all state galleries, many regional and university galleries as well as some overseas institutions collect indigenous prints. Our National Gallery has a particularly fine collection that has been acquired over the years with the generous assistance of the Gordon Darling Foundation. Many of the state galleries, university collections and smaller institutions that lack the resources of their larger counterparts collect prints and other works on paper almost exclusively as it allows them acquire works by important artists within their limited budgets.
The collectable Aboriginal prints are the ones produced by artists working on etching plates, acetate cells or screens (for screenprints), lithographic stones and linoleum or wood blocks. They are created by the artists and printmakers especially for the edition. The number of prints in each edition are strictly limited. They are numbered and individually signed by the artists. This is in fact what imparts added value to each piece and makes them collectable. Aboriginal Art Prints was established specifically to assist Australian Aboriginal artists to work in the print medium. It is involved with the artists and their communities from the commissioning stage through to publishing, production, marketing and distribution. Aboriginal Art Prints is dedicated to fair and equitable dealing with Indigenous artists and to advancing opportunities for them to exhibit their work internationally. Purchasing a print from the Aboriginal Art Prints or one of the many fine galleries it supplies is your guarantee of quality workmanship, authenticity and cultural integrity.
Article By Adrian Newstead
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