Ngurrara: The Great Sandy Desert Canvas, developed by the South Australian Museum, centred on one of the largest and most spectacular Aboriginal Western Desert paintings: the great Ngurrara Canvas.
Ngurrara was previously on show at the National Museum of Australia from 5 April to 22 June 2018.
The Ngurrara Canvas by Ngurrara artists and claimants, coordinated by Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency
Minangu Huey Bent painting the Ngurrara Canvas at Pirnini, 1997
Hitler Pamba and Nada Rawlins completing the Warla section of the Ngurrara Canvas
Nyirlpirr Spider Snell explaining the Ngurrara Canvas, 2005
The Ngurrara Canvas at the Ngurrara native title determination proceedings at Pirnini
The great Ngurrara Canvas
The great Ngurrara Canvas is one of the largest and most spectacular Aboriginal Western Desert paintings. It was painted by senior traditional owners of the Great Sandy Desert of northern Western Australia as an emotionally and politically charged expression of their links to their country, for presentation to the National Native Title Tribunal in 1997.
This imposing painting was exhibited alongside paintings and films made during the painters’ visits to their ancestral land, juxtaposed with artefacts, crayon drawings and regional maps made by the painters’ parental generation during a 1952 anthropological expedition.
In our collection
Ngurrara: The Great Sandy Desert Canvas was supported by the Government of South Australia, Visions of Australia and the South Australian Museum.
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