Albert Namatjira had been a dedicated craftsman for several years before taking up the brush.  Images emblazoned on his early boomerangs, woomeras and mulga plaques attest to Namatjira’s exceptional powers of observation and flair for design.  It was during a celebrated expedition, with the intrepid artist Rex Battarbee in 1936, that Namatjira learned the watercolour techniques that would bring him into public prominence.

Importantly, Namatjira’s early experience as a ‘camel boy’ gave him the capacity to carry provisions, camping gear and painting equipment required for extended travel to distant picturesque locales.  Namatjira was in every way a man of the twentieth century.  On receipt of his first income tax assessment in 1946, ...