Minnie Pwerle

Born c. 1922, in the Eastern Desert, Minnie Pwerle worked on the property and homestead of nearby pastoralists as a young girl and, and whilst still in her teens bore a daughter, Barbara (Florie), to Jack Weir, the owner of a neighbouring station. Jack was arrested and taken with Minnie and their child to Harts Range police station from which she walked the 600 kilometers back to her outstation with her baby in her arms. She spent the following years living in fear that her daughter would be taken away by ‘the native welfare’. Barbara was finally taken eight years later and did not return to Utopia until 1968, by which time Jack Weir had died, and Minnie had married Motorcar Jim, with whom she had six children. Despite the batik workshops held in Utopia in the late 1970’s and the adoption of painting there by women as early as the late 1980’s, Minnie Pwerle is not believed to have picked up a brush until she had reached her late 70’s, in 1999. Minnie’s reason, given during an interview in 2004 was that ‘no one asked me to’. Such apparent shyness however is not at all evident in the canvasses she immediately began filling with gestural depictions of her country, Atnwengerrp, and its Dreamings. A collection of the first three hundered of these has been kept intact by Hank Ebes, the owner of Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, who helped to fund the earliest workshops at the time she began to paint. A chronological look through these early works demonstrates the surety and vigor of her stroke from the outset as she depicted the Women’s Ceremony, Awelye, and the once abundant Bush Melon and Bush Melon Seed in a way that reflects a strength of character built during a lifetime of dislocation and hardship. Minnie’s career and that of the great Emily Kame Kngwarreye share many parallels. Both began painting in their late 70’s and both created work for a period of seven years. Despite a short early period during which Emily painted tightly controlled painstaking fields of tiny dots obscuring detailed iconography beneath, both painted the majority of their works equally gesturally and produced a prodigious output, generally thought to number in excess of 4000 individual works. Both artists painted works that were immediately popular, most especially amongst women, and were able to support a number of close relatives with the income they generated. Indeed the comparison between the two women, who were sisters-in-law, extended to their fundamental feelings 'of reverence, abandon… intuition-minimal fuss,' as Sydney abstractionist Tony Tuckson phrased it (cited in McCulloch 2003). The manner in which they created their works appeared to be the result of an urgency to reconnect to the past and to keep the Dreaming a living reality. Just like Emily Kngwarreye before her, in painting after painting Minnie boldly and self-assuredly depicted the body designs painted on to women’s breasts and limbs for the regular ceremonial revivification of her country. While the rambling tuberous roots of the Yam or Bush Potato were Emily’s Dreamings and the subject of her art, Minnie’s primary focus was the Bush Melon and its seeds. Her Awelye-Antnwengerrp paintings drew directly from these ceremonial practices, depicting bush melon, seed, and breast designs in powerful multi-coloured brushstrokes that built in to a structured patchwork of luminous colour most often emanating from within a darker under-layer. The energy of these vibrant colourful works seemed to capture the joy of coming across these sweet bush foods, now scarce and difficult to find. In retrospect, Minnie’s painting career reflects a sense of disorganisation and dislocation, given the absence of an art centre in the community during her lifetime. While family groups live on sixteen disparate outstations, the Arlparra store, where Minnie sometimes resided is still the sole unifying centre. Her first works were painted during a workshop organized by Barbara Weir’s son, her grandson Fred Torres, who became her principle dealer. Minnie, however, painted for many others, including Tim Jennings of Mbantua Gallery, Jo Doyle of Ironwood Arts as well as nearly all of the dealers in Alice Springs at one time or another. From the outset her work was popular and, just as Emily had done during the early 1990’s, Minnie kept many galleries in business during the start of the new millennium. In the space of just seven years, like Emily, she could easily have painted up to 4000 works. With Torres as her agent she produced most of her finest paintings, receiving wide acclaim after solo exhibitions in Melbourne in 2000 at the Flinders Lane Gallery and in Sydney at Gallery Savah. Her works were exhibited at Fireworks Gallery in Brisbane, Japingka Gallery in Perth and Tandanya in Adelaide as well as being included in important exhibitions in Paris, and Santa Fe. She passed away in 2006, her life an extraordinary journey mapping the transition from that of a nomad, through the early years of the pastoral industry, to a new era of Aboriginal control, and a flourishing art movement at Utopia. It has only been possible to assess the true quality of her output in retrospect, because her career as a painter was rapid and chaotic and her output uneven and often repetitive. Since her death, it has become apparent that her finest works are enduring masterpieces and, despite her many minor works, these place her amongst the most important Aboriginal artists that practiced during the early years of the twenty first century.

2022 - Connection | Songlines from Australia's First Peoples in a spectacular immersive experience, National Museum of Australia, Canberra
2021 - Minnie's artworks feature again in the reenactment of 'Badu Gili', a nightly year-round sunset projection onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House
2017 - Minnie's artworks feature in 'Badu Gili', a nightly year-round sunset projection onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House
2008 - Atnwengerrp: Land of Dreaming, Minnie Pwerle carpet launch, Designer Rugs Showroom, Sydney
2005 - 22nd NATSIAA, Darwin - Finalist
2004 - Top 50 Collectable Artists, Australian Art Collector Magazine
2002 - 19th NATSIAA, Darwin - Selected Entrant
2001 - 18th NATSIAA, Darwin - Finalist

2021 - Remembering Minnie | 15 years on, Artmob, Hobart
2015 - Minnie, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2010 - Body Lines, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2008 - Minnie Pwerle - Body Paint, DACOU, Melbourne
2006 - Memorial Exhibition, Gallery Savah, Sydney
2004 - Minnie Pwerele, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne
2003 - Art & Soul Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
2002 - Recent Paintings, Gallery Savah, Sydney
2002 - Minnies Country, DACOU Gallery, Adelaide
2002 - Awelye Atnwengerrp, DACOU Gallery, Adelaide
2000 - Minnie Pwerle, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne

2025 – Ties That Bind: Family Matters, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2025 – Desert Icons: The Peter Speed Collection, Wentworth Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2025 – The Ancient Present, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
2025 – Paint It Red, Art Mob, Hobart, TAS, Australia
2025 – Dreaming in Color: Works by Australian First Nations Artists, SmithDavidson Gallery, Amsterdam, Mexico City and Miami
2024 – Utopia in Colours, Fondation Burkhardt-Felder Arts et Culture, Môtiers, Switzerland
2023 – Emily & Others: Geniuses from Utopia, Art Mob, Hobart, TAS, Australia
2023 – Atnwengerrp – Our Home, Our Country, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2023 – NAIDOC Week Exhibition, Art Mob, The Packing Room, Henry Jones Art Hotel, Hobart, TAS, Australia
2023 – Utopia in Colours, Musée de l’Art Aborigène Australien, Fondation Burkhardt-Felder Arts et Culture, Môtiers, Switzerland
2023 – Celebrating Country: Women Artists of Art Mob, Art Mob, Hobart, TAS, Australia
2023 – Tracing the Country: Living Landscapes from the Central and Western Deserts, Cooee Art, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2023 – Survey: Works from the Dalrymple Community Cultural Centre Trust Collection, Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts, Townsville, QLD, Australia
2022 – Nations 2022, Art Mob, Henry Jones Art Hotel Packing Room, Hobart, TAS, Australia
2022 – Connection, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, ACT, Australia
2022 – Ngawiya Ngubadi, Sidney Nolan Trust, The Rodd, Herefordshire, UK
2022 – Art Mob’s 20th Birthday Exhibition, Art Mob, Hobart, TAS, Australia
2021 – Gillian and Watson McAllister Collection, Cooee Art, Bondi, NSW, Australia
2021 – Desert Colours 2021, Incinerator Art Space, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2021 – Body Line, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
2021 – We Choose to Challenge, Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2020 – Still in the Desert, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
2019 – International Women’s Day Exhibition, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2019 – Large Showroom: Large Works, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
2019 – Desert Colours: Central Australian Painting from the Collection, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
2019 – Defining Tradition: The Colourists, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2019 – Matches 6, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
2018 – Earth’s Creation 2: Emily Kame Kngwarreye & Family, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2018 – Utopia Women, Merricks Art Gallery, Merricks, VIC, Australia
2018 – Utopia: Four Generations, Pwerle Gallery with One Rundle Trading Co., Adelaide, SA, Australia
2017 – Gems from the Stockroom, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2017 – A Sweep Continues, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
2016 – Cooee Art at Australian Galleries, Australian Galleries, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2013 – My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
2012 – The Bright, The Bold & The Beautiful, Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2010 – Utopia, DACOU, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2010 – The Pwerle Sisters, DACOU Australia, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2010 – The Australian Indigenous Art Market Top 100 Exhibition, Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2010 – Minnie Pwerle and Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2010 – Desert Rhythms, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2009 – Utopia: Colours of the Desert, Gongpyeong Art Space, Seoul, South Korea
2009 – A Decade of Australia’s Indigenous Fine Art 1999–2009, Salt Gallery, Queenscliff, VIC, Australia
2009 – Size Matters, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2009 – En_trance: Experience and Sensation in Nomadic Art, Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2008 – Utopia Revisited, NG Art Gallery, Chippendale, NSW, Australia
2008 – EWB Elements, travelling exhibition, Australia (DACOU Melbourne / Dreamtime Art)
2008 – Emily Kngwarreye and Her Legacy, Art Front Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2008 – Colours of Utopia, Gallery Savah, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2008 – Atnwengerrp: Land of Dreaming, Designer Rugs Showroom, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2007 – Utopia in New York, Robert Steele Gallery, New York, USA
2007 – Treasures of the Spirit, Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA, Australia
2007 – Standing on Ceremony, Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA, Australia
2007 – New Works from Utopia, Space Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
2007 – Desert Diversity, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2007 – APS Bendi Lango Art Exhibition with Rio Tinto, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
2006 – Utopia, Galerie DAD, France
2006 – The Pwerle Sisters, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2006 – Second Shalom Gamarada Aboriginal Art Exhibition, Shalom College, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2005 – Utopia Revealed, Japingka Gallery, Perth, WA, Australia
2005 – Small Wonders, Mbantua Gallery, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
2005 – Chefs d’Oeuvre: Maitres du Desert, Galerie DAD, Mantes-la-Jolie, France
2005 – 22nd Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT, Australia
2005 – The Dark and The Light, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
2004 – Utopia: Gloria, Barbara, Minnie, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2004 – Divas of the Desert, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
2004 – Twenty Indigenous Female Artists from Central Australia, Ann Snell Gallery, Australia
2004 – Australian Aboriginal Art Collectors Exhibition, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2004 – 21st Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT, Australia
2004 – Colour Power: Aboriginal Art Post-1984, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2003 – My Grandmother and Me, Walkabout Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2003 – Contemporary Aboriginal Art Event, Mbantua Gallery / Umpqua Bank, Portland, OR, USA
2003 – Art from the Dreamtime, Portland Art Museum / Mbantua Gallery, Portland, OR, USA
2003 – Minimal Fuss, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
2003 – 20th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT, Australia
2002 – Utopia, Galerie Le Temps du Rêve, Pont-Aven, France
2002 – United: Mother and Daughter, Alison Kelly Gallery, Armadale, VIC, Australia
2002 – The Utopia Six, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2002 – Paintings from Utopia, Framed Gallery, Darwin, NT, Australia
2002 – Mixed Utopia Exhibition, Knut Grothe Galerie, Charlottenlund, Copenhagen, Denmark
2002 – Minnie's Country, DACOU Gallery, Adelaide, SA, Australia
2002 – Generations Utopia, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, WA, Australia
2002 – BIG COUNTRY small worlds, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
2001 – Women Artists of the Australian Desert, Gallery 2021, Auckland, New Zealand
2001 – Small Stories, Japingka Gallery, Perth, WA, Australia
2001 – Desert Colour: My Country, Raintree Aboriginal Art Gallery, Darwin, NT, Australia
1999 – My Dreaming, Redrock Gallery, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, SA
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, VIC
Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica, CA, USA
AMP Collection, Sydney, NSW
John McBride Collection, Sydney, NSW
Thomas Vroom Collection, The Netherlands
Kreglinger Collection, Melbourne, VIC
La Trobe University Collection, Melbourne, VIC
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, QLD

Minnie Pwerle painted only during the last seven years of her life yet her output was prodigious. Her colourful expressive works seemed tailor-made to meet the market demand for vibrant gestural paintings left vacant by the death of her countrywoman Emily Kngwarreye. She created her earliest paintings in 1999 and by 2002, when her first works began appearing on the secondary market, they could be found in shops, retailers and galleries all over the country. With so many paintings produced in such a short and intense period, an uneven output and reports of fakery were not uncommon. While the Aboriginal art market was in a buoyant state, the speculative atmosphere at the time made it difficult for anyone, other than those closest to her, to differentiate between her finest works and the large amount of repetitive imagery she produced. As a result, when her paintings began to appear at auction, results were nothing short of catastrophic. Collectors, quite obviously, did not take her work seriously. Sotheby’s were completely disinterested in her, due in part to their lack of faith in the artist, but more because of their prejudice against works with Dacou provenance; a hangover from their policy in regard to Emily’s Kngwarreye’s output. Her presence in the secondary market began inauspiciously. When her works first appeared in 2002 only two works sold out of the five offered with two out of four selling the following year. With Minnie continuing to supply an ever ready and uneducated primary market, 2004 and 2005 were her worst years. Of 35 works offered during those two years 32 failed to sell. Under normal circumstances most auction houses and collectors would have seen this as the kiss of death. , but there were a number of fine art galleries that had sold exceptional works by the artist. Believing that she had been ill-served by the mediocre paintings that had found their way in to the secondary market at that time they began feeding it with higher quality works through Lawson~Menzies sales. Perhaps one work alone pointed to a far different future for the artist in the secondary market. Despite the appalling results of 2004, an exceptional example of the artist’s best early paintings Awelye Atnwengerrp 2000, measuring 360 x 166 cm, sold for $43, 200 against a presale estimate of $40, 000-60, 000 at Lawson~Menzies November auction (Lot 42). This result easily held the record for the artist until the following year when Lawson~Menzies sold Awelye 2004 for $72, 000 (Lot 53). It is indicative of the incredible turnaround in Minnie’s records that just four years later, this work was her seventh highest result. Sales during the three years following her death in 2006, by comparison, were nothing short of spectacular and were due entirely to a curatorial reassessment of her oeuvre by Lawson~Menzies who had sold every one of her top ten results and all but three of her top 20 by the end of that period. In what was a complete turnabout 55 works were offered in 2006 and 2007 of which 43 were successful. In 2007 alone, Lawson~Menzies posted the artist’s best, third, fourth, fifth, eight, ninth and tenth highest results. A new record was set in November 2007 for a relatively early work Awelye Atnwengerrp 2002 (Lot 51) measuring 165 x 360 cm, which sold for $78, 000 against a pre-sale estimate of $60, 000-80, 000 thereby eclipsing the previous record of $72, 000 for the similar sized Awelye 2004 that had sold in November 2006 (Lot 53). As would be expected, average prices on the secondary market vary according to size regardless of quality. Minnie painted a number of major works around 350 x 165 cm in size, which have sold at an average of $56, 000. This held true in 2009 with Awelye Antwengerrp - Bush Tomato, 2001 measuring 353 x 164 cm which sold for $43, 200. However there is a dramatic drop in average prices with works around 270 x 120 cm having sold for a mean of $18, 000, while works averaging 200 x 120 cm sold at around $11, 000. Works smaller than 150 x 120 cm regularly sell below $5, 000. Moreover, regardless of size, her 2010 average price of $8. 080, was nearly half that of 2009. This is quite a different story to her prices in the primary market. Since her death Dacou re-priced all of her canvasses painted prior to 2002 and today these sell for considerably more than the averages listed above. Over the next few years expect some spectacular results when the best of these smaller works are offered through auction houses. As a perfect example, Awelye 2003, a wonderful 120 x 90 cm work executed in a moody blue and white palette with minimalist aesthetic was estimated at just $8, 000-10, 000 in Lawson~Menzies November 2007 sale (Lot 110) but sold for $36, 000, a stunning result compared to the average for works around this size of just $3, 500. With so many ordinary paintings sitting on collector’s walls, the cream of Minnie’s oeuvre will only appear for sale over time. Nevertheless, her recent records have been impressive. She was the 20th most successful artist of the movement in 2015, the 16th in 2016. and 14th on 2019. As with works by all prolific artists, the majority of Minnie Pwerle’s paintings are difficult to critically assess. Most of her smaller works are to be avoided at auction despite their appeal, especially by collectors who have any concerns about investment value. Yet those works bought with judgment and a critical eye should hold their value. With average prices for smaller works well below primary market values, the secondary market may well be the place to pick up a bargain, especially if you fall in love with a painting and are not so concerned about its re-sale value. Minnie's major works vary in quality but not as greatly as the smaller pieces. There are enough masterpieces amongst them to ensure that Minnie Pwerle will rate amongst the greatest of all Aboriginal women painters and prove a number of her critics completely wrong about her legacy.