Bobby Barrdjaray Nganjmirra | National Museum of Australia

Djalama clan, Kunwinjku language, Yirridjdja moiety

Black and white photograph portrait of a man. - click to view larger image — Bobby Barrdjaray Nganjmirra

1915–1992

Barrdjaray was the head of one of the great Australian art dynasties – the Nganjmirra family – that includes his younger brothers Jimmy Nakkurridjdjilmi and Peter (1927–1987), and their sons and grandchildren.

Barrdjaray was a prolific painter with a wide range of subjects available to him due to his high ritual status. He worked with the anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt after the Second World War, and in the 1970s was a member of the Aboriginal Arts Board.

He featured in major group exhibitions, including Kunwinjku Bim at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1984, and The Continuing Tradition at the National Gallery of Australia in 1989.

Paintings in the exhibition

A bark painting worked in ochres on bark and on wooden restrainers. It depicts a female figure seated on a rock. The figure has the lower half of her proper left arm missing. She is painted in crosshatched diagonal lines of brown and white. The painting has a red background. - click to view larger image — *Marrayka*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts a Mimi spirit, two fish and a bird in flight all painted with crosshatching designs. The painting has a red background. - click to view larger image — *Mimih, Eagle Hawk and Fish*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark and on wooden restrainers bound with cane. It depicts four figures painted in red, white and black crosshatching. There is a snake in the upper right hand corner and a tree in the lower left hand corner, There is a crosshatched circle between the two central figures. This circle is connected to another similar circle joined to another figure below the snake. - click to view larger image — *Nakidjkidj and Mimih at Nimbuwah Rock*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark and on wooden restrainers. It depicts a female spirit with a fighting bag and a forked tree next to her with a hanging dillybag. These are painted in pipeclay with bands of infill. This consists of widely spaced sets of transverse red and black lines. - click to view larger image — *Ngaldjorlboh the Spirit Woman*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark. It depicts a vertical rectangular shape with a smaller crosshatched horizontal rectangle on top of this and a larger white painted rectangle above this again. There are three feathery white trees attached to this. The main rectangle has patterns of cross hatching with triangular pattterns in white. Below this is an irregular white painted shape divided by bands of red. A further three feathery trees are depicted here beside a crosshatched thorn shape. Below this image are four spears and an axe all painted white. - click to view larger image — *Nimbuwah*

Jimmy Nakkurridjdjilmi Nganjmirra

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All these bark paintings are part of the National Museum of Australia’s collection. © the artist or the artist’s estate, licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency 2013, unless otherwise specified. These images must not be reproduced in any form without permission.

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