lamdha books -
Catalogue of books on Australian indigenous art

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76889 Ahern, Amanda, & The Mornington Island Elders Paint-Up University of Queensland Press, St Lucia Qld., 2002. Oblong quarto paperback, 104pp., colour illustrations. Scuffed cover. Otherwise minor wear only; near fine. Click here to order $18

209597 Aigner, Katherine (ed.) Australia: The Vatican Mueums Indigenous Collection Edizioni Musei Vaticani, Citta del Vaticano, 2017. Quarto gatefold paperback; 395pp., colour & b&w illustrations. Minor wear only; near fine. The Australian collection at the Vatican mainly originates from two specific times: the establishment of New Norcia monastic community near Perth by Benedictine missionaries Rosendo Salvado and Joseph Serra in 1847, and the great exhibition held at the Vatican in 1925 when between the two world wars, Pope Pius XI asked missionaries around the world to ask the people to send objects to educate the European audience about their spiritual cultural and daily life. Objects have also been gifted to popes on their visits to Australia. The mid to late 1800s and ealy 1900s was a time of enormous change and upheaval for aboriginal people in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. They suffered from the aggressive impacts of pastoral land grabs, a rush for gold and the creation of pearling fleets. Vast tracts of land were being taken up by new settlers to farm sheep and cattle pushing Aboriginal people into isolated pockets of refuge. Changes to the traditional Indigenous homelands were rapid. In the context of these early years of violent frontier conflict and upheaval Yued people in the south west and Gwini and Kulari peoples in the east Kimberley displayed agency by choosing to engage (or not) with religious missions, and left objects with them as gifts of exchange. This catalogue has an emphasis on the cultural and spiritual life of the aforementioned peoples (and including works from the Tiwi Islands). It is an important and unique historical collection of inter-cultural engagement and dialogue. Click here to order $40

99041 Bardon, Geoffrey & James Bardon Papunya - A Place Made After the Story The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd., Aldershot Hampshire UK, 2006. First edition thus: quarto; hardcover, with gilt spine titling; 528pp., with many colour illustrations. Dustwrapper, now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Fine. What started as an exercise to encourage the Aboriginal schoolchildren to record their sand patterns and games grew to involve, at the peak of creativity, as many as thirty tribal men and elders. With teacher Geoffrey Bardon's encouragement, these men worked to preserve their traditional Dreamings and stories in paint. The artistic movement unleashed at Papunya spread over Central Australia and has since achieved international acclaim. Papunya: A Place Made After the Story is a first-hand account of the artists and the works emanating from Papunya. Bardon's exquisitely recorded notes and drawings are here reproduced showing his extensive documentation of the early stages of the painting movement. The book features more than 500 paintings, drawings and photographs from Bardon's personal archive. Click here to order $120

90904 Battarbee, Rex and Bernice Modern Aboriginal Paintings Rigby, Adelaide, 1971. Small quarto hardcover; illustrated boards with ochre endpapers; unpaginated with colour illustrations. Minor wear; slight scuffing and wear to board edges and corners; slightly scuffed dustwrapper with wear and chipping to spine panel extremities. Very good with wrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Albert Namatjira and his 'school'. Click here to order $28

89163 Capon, Edmund, et al. Gamarada / Friends The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney NSW, 1996. Quarto; paperback, with rear endpaper maps; 84pp., with many full-colour illustrations. Small superficial crease to upper rear corner of card cover; else near fine. Exhibition catalogue. Click here to order $20

88183 Demozay, Marion (ed.) Gatherings II: Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art from Queensland Australia Keeaira Press, Southport, 2006. Square quarto paperback; 224pp., colour illustrations. Minor wear; covers mildly scuffed with a few tiny marks. Near fine otherwise. Click here to order $25

94376 Dezuanni, Rebecca, & Kylie Timmins (eds.) Story Place Indigenous Art of Cape York and the Rainforest Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane Qld., 2003. Quarto; gatefold paperback; 240pp., with many colour and monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; light sunning to the covers. Very good. This publication accompanies the first major survey exhibition of historical and contemporary art work from Australia's Cape York Peninsula. For the first time in one book, the art and culture of Cape York is observed through a series of essays, interviews, plus artist and community profiles. Richly illustrated, it features the art work, the people and the environments of Cape York. Click here to order $50

207257 Godden, Elaine (Jutta Malnic, illus.) Rock Paintings of Aboriginal Australia A.H. & A.W. Reed Pty. Ltd., French's Forest NSW, 1982. First edition: landscape quarto; hardcover, with upper board titles and decorated endpapers; 128pp., with many colour and monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; some light scraping to the board edges and spine extremities; text block edges lightly spotted. Dustwrapper sunned along the spine panel. Very good in a mildly rubbed and bumped illustrated slipcase. Click here to order $35

217032 Isaacs, Jennifer Desert Crafts: Anagu Maruku Punu Doubleday, Sydney, 1992. Quarto hardcover; 149pp., colour illustrations. Mildly rubbed red illustrated dustwrapper with slightly sunned spine, now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. This is the story of the traditional and contemporary craft and carvings of the Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjara people known collectively as Anangu. Anangu lands cover the entire central and south-western desert areas of Australia and incorporate the Uluru/Katatjuta National Park. Having fought successfully to regain their lands, these communities have retained many elements of their traditional lifestyle and culture. The production of their crafts is connected to the Tjukurpa (Creation Law). This is expressed in the designs etched or burnt into Maruku craft, symbolising great ancestral journeys that explain the desert landscape and give meaning to Anangu life. This book details the materials and techniques used by Anangu to make their craft and the significance of each item. Click here to order $30

90226 Lowe, Pat & Jimmy Pike Jilji: Life in the Great Sandy Desert - signed by Pat Lowe Magabala Books, Broome WA, 1990. Quarto; hardcover, with white upper board titling and decorated endpapers; 147pp., with many colour illustrations. Minor wear; institution stamp on half-title page and presentation date handwritten on the title page; mild wear to board edges and corners. One or two tiny scrapes on the dustwrapper edges; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good to near fine. This book describes some of the features of life in the desert as told or shown by people who once lived here. Where there has been no real change, the present tense is used; for accuracy, however, when life is described as it was lived by nomadic bands before they settled, the past is used. The desert language in the text is Walmajarri. Click here to order $45

90191 McCulloch, Susan Contemporary Aboriginal Art A Guide to the Rebirth of an Ancient Culture Allen & Unwin, St Leonards NSW, 1999. First edition: quarto; hardcover, with gilt spine titling; 240pp., with many colour illustrations. Minor wear only; a few scattered spots on the text block edges and mild wear to lower board edges and corners. Near fine in like dustwrapper, now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Since the renaissance of traditional Aboriginal art began at the small central Australian desert community of Papunya in 1971, Aboriginal art has become Australia's most dynamic visual arts practice. The cross-hatched bark paintings from Arnhem Land; the multi-layered 'dot' paintings from central Australia; the ochre paintings of Western Australia's west Kimberley painters; the bright 'naif' watercolours of the Fitzroy Crossing artists from the east Kimberley; and the widely divergent individual expressions of urban artists, are only some of the prolific expressions of this rich evolving tradition. This book explores Australia's contrasting landscapes and the historic circumstances of the growth of this vibrant art movement. Biographical information about major artists and their histories within at least twenty regional locations are also provided. Click here to order $30

91412 McDonald, Ewen (ed.) (Christopher Snee, illus.) Painted Dreams Western Paintings from the Johnson Collection National Gallery of NSW, Sydney NSW, 1995. Quarto; paperback; 47pp., with many full-colour illustrations. Minor wear to cover edges; couple of small red stain to lower obverse edge of front card cover. Near fine otherwise. Exhibition catalogue. Click here to order $40

91523 Mualgau Minaral Artist Collective Gelam Nguzu Kazi - Dugong My Son The first exhibition of limited edition linocuts by the artists of the Mualgau Minaral Artist Collective from Mua Island in the Torres Strait Kubin Community Council, Mua Island Torres Strait via Thursday Island Qld., 2001. Octavo; paperback; 64pp. with many full-colour illustrations. Moderate wear; covers rubbed. Very good. Click here to order $20

204563 Parker, Adrian Images in Ochre - signed The Art and Craft of the Kunwinjku J.B. Publishing, Marleston, 2004. Quarto paperback; 96pp., colour illustrations. Inscribed in ink by the author. One or two small marks on text block edges; slightly rubbed covers with mild wear to edges. Very good. Click here to order $35

201130 Quaill, Avril Marking Our Times: Selected works of art from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Collection at the National Gallery of Australia National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1996. Quarto paperback; 75pp., colour plates. Mild rubbing to covers with slight wear to edges and corners. Very good to near fine. Celebrating the richness and diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art in contemporary Australia and in the National Gallery's collection, this book highlights a selection of major artists and features new developments in media and artistic idioms. From bark paintings and weaving to photography, video and installations, it encompasses artists from Arnhem Land, Wadeye and the islands of the Tiwi people near Darwin, the central Australian desert regions, the Kimberley, north Queensland and the Torres Strait, as well as the urban and rural areas of the continent's seaboard. Click here to order $20

206558 Ryan, Judith Spirit in Land bark paintings from Arnhem Land National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Vic., nd. Quarto; gatefold paperback, with illustrated wrappers; 120pp., with many colour and monochrome illustrations. Mild wear; covers lightly rubbed and edgeworn; spine sunned. Very good. Exhibition catalogue. Click here to order $25

201131 Ryan, Judith (with an essay by Geoffrey Bardon) Mythscapes: Aboriginal Art of the Desert from the National Gallery of Victoria National Gallery of Victoria, nd. Quarto gatefold paperback; 104pp., colour and monochrome illustrations with a fold-out illustration. Mild rubbing to covers, wear to edges and corners and creased spine; sticker residue on upper front corner. Very good. One of the most interesting art movements of modern times began when art teacher Geoffrey Bardon, working in the Papunya settlement 250 miles from Alice Springs in the Western desert of Australia, asked a group of children to paint their school house with the curious design motifs he had noticed. The youngsters asked their elders to do it. From those first five rudimentary school murals, Bardon supplied the community with paints, brushes and canvases, spawning the creation of art that has attracted buyers around the world. The idea spread like wild yams in the bush. Geoffrey Bardon wrote; ' In 1980 I sometimes thought, among those new fires and shattered expectations, that an older Australia was passing away forever, that our own symmetries had been set aside and made helpless, and that a new visualization and idea of the continent had come forth, quite literally, out of that burning or freezing red sand. It is hard to be clear about an entire continent wondrously re-perceived by the brutally rejected, and sick, and poor. Yet this is what occurred. This was the gift that time gave and I know this, in my heart, for I was there'. Click here to order $25

207225 Sayers, Andrew Aboriginal Artists of the Nineteenth Century Oxford University Press Australia/National Gallery of Australia, South Melbourne Vic., 1997. Hardcover, quarto; brown boards with gilt spine titling, blue endpapers; 162pp., with many monochrome and colour illustrations. Minor wear only; dustwrapper spine panel slightly sunned, now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Near fine otherwise. Andrew Sayers examines a considerable body of drawings produced by Aboriginal artists between 1803 and 1903. Never before collected as a genre, these works are retained in museums, libraries, or private hands and have rarely been displayed. Often regarded as inauthentic art because of their stylistic borrowings and fluctuations, they enjoy a unique status as products of the interaction between Aboriginal society and the British colonizers. The largest group of drawings comes from the hands of three artists - Tommy McCrae (c1823-1901), William Barak (c1824-1903), and Ulladulla Mickey (c1820-1891), who produced their drawings in the 1880s and 1890s. Visually these drawings are varied, but they possess many of the aesthetic qualities which characterise contemporary Aboriginal art, displaying intense vitality and an acute understanding of flora and fauna. Click here to order $75

200702 [State Art Galleries of Australia] Australian Aboriginal Art Bark Paintings; Carved Figures; Sacred and Secular Objects State Art Galleries of Australia, 1960-61. Stapled small quarto paperback, 34pp, colour frontispiece and monochrome plates. Owner's name; mild wear to card covers; else very good. Click here to order $22

206602 Walsh, Grahame L. Australia's Greatest Rock Art E.J. Brill - Robert Brown & Associates, Bathurst NSW, 1988. Oblong quarto; hardcover, with gilt spine and upper board titling and blind-stamped decoration; 312pp., many colour illustrations. Minor wear; a few small marks and spots to the text block upper edge; faint scattered spotting to half-title page; upper edge of pages a little rippled. Mild rubbing to the dustwrapper; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good to near fine. Of the continents, Australia's rock art riches stand out. Art has been created in different environments ranging from desert to reef, and the tropics to snow-covered mountains. Styles vary from region to region, environment to environment. Site recording is highlighting the extent and vast numbers of rock art sites in Australia. Realization of the antiquity, diversity and site numbers, tangible links with contemporary Aboriginal culture, and personal public experience with managed art sites are stimulating more public and scientific attention. This was the first book to attempt an overview of Australian rock art to the general reader, illustrating it in context. The reader is introduced to the subject with historic accounts of European discovery and attitudes to rock art. The antiquity, significance and purpose of rock art and its mythology is explained. Close liaison between the author and Aboriginal caretakers has ensured the avoidance of sensitive detail and the exact locations of art sites are not revealed. Click here to order $600