Hermannsburg Watercolours: featuring the Collection of John Hart
Hermannsburg Watercolours: featuring the Collection of John Hart
D+H ONLINE
13 - 18 October
John Hart camping MacDonnell Ranges, 1955
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Melbourne orthopaedic surgeon and collector, John Hart (1937 – 2014) was remarkably enthusiastic about Aboriginal art with a particular predilection for watercolours from Hermannsburg. He spent nearly six decades carefully collecting quality pieces from galleries and auction houses, and by the turn of the twenty first century, his collection spanned generations of artists who had followed in the painting tradition of Albert Namatjira and the Hermannsburg school. Deutscher and Hackett is pleased to offer this selection of watercolours from his personal collection.
Mr John Hart was head of the Orthopaedic Unit at the Alfred Hospital from 1980 to 2003 and a clinical Associate Professor in the Department of surgery at Monash University. A man of great energy, John embraced many passions – a renown twitcher and nature lover, bibliophile, connoisseur of fine wine, and an enthusiastic collector of maps and Australian art. John’s interest in fine art ranged from colonial drawings and Gould prints of birds and native animals to modern art, and Australian Indigenous painting and sculpture. However, it was the watercolours from Hermannsburg that became his greatest fascination, with John frequently visiting auction houses and galleries across metropolitan Melbourne to acquire watercolours that appealed to his keen eye.
The selection offered in this auction, The John Hart Collection of Hermannsburg watercolour, are a celebration of the heritage of Albert Namatjira and the Hermannsburg school of painters. Comprising works from across multiple generations of artists, the collection features watercolours by Albert Namatjira, five of his children, three grandchildren, extended family relatives and other family groups from Hermannsburg. The works were produced from the mid-twentieth century through to the first decades of the twenty-first century. The collection highlights John’s astute eye for noting talent and innovation – with many paintings being exemplary examples by the artists illustrating artistic variations and evolution taking place over each generation.
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Hermannsburg Mission, 1955
John acquired his first work, a watercolour by Henoch Raberaba, in 1955 when as an eighteen-year-old he visited the Hermannsburg mission while travelling in central Australia and the West MacDonnell Ranges, a trip that would greatly influence his love of nature and of art. Over the next 6 decades John put together a comprehensive collection, adding the final work, a large and impressive painting by Douglas Kwarlpe Abbott (lot 25), acquired from a Melbourne gallery in 2009.
Perhaps John had a premonition that the Hermannsburg school would be reassessed and assume its place in the pantheon of indigenous art – no longer to be seen as an outlier of the Western painting tradition, as many critics had perceived it in previous decades.
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John Hart visiting Palm valley, 1955
Alongside paintings by Albert Namatjira (lot 5), are watercolours produced by his five male children: Enos (lot 3); Oscar (lot 8); Ewald (lots 35, 36); Keith (lots 7, 10, 19, 33); and Maurice (lots 6, 18), together with grandchildren Lenie (lot 56); Reggie (lot 34); and Gabriel (lot 49). Paintings by generations of other renowned families from Hermannsburg – Pareroultja, Moketarinja, Runbuntja, Ebatarinja, Pannka, Landara, Abbott, Raberaba and Inkamala – also feature in his collection and this auction. Moreover, two works by Rex Battabee, Namatjira’s teacher, are similarly included.
As with all fine collections, the secret of success is to trust one’s own taste and to love what one is collecting – both rules which John followed. More specifically, the role of an art collector is one of custodian – to take temporary charge of a creation that originates from the artist, but belongs to the wider world. Thus, by offering these works at auction the Hart family are sharing John’s enduring passion for Hermannsburg watercolours with a broader audience of collectors who will hopefully derive similar enjoyment and appreciation.