Freddy Timms (1946, Bedford Downs Station – 2017) was an Australian indigenous artist from the

Kimberley Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia Queensland * Kimberley, Queensland, a coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas South Australia * County of Kimberley, a cadastral unit in South Australia Ta ...

region.

Life and art

Timms commenced painting on canvas in the 1990s at Turkey Creek / Warmun in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. In 2002, a controversy that came to involve Timms, developed when writer

Keith Windschuttle Keith Windschuttle (1942 – 8 April 2025) was an Australian historian. He was appointed to the board of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from 2006 to 2011. He was editor of '' Quadrant'' from 2007 to 2015 when he became chair of the bo ...

argued that claims made by some historians about the killing of indigenous people by white landholders were false. Windschuttle's arguments were part of a broader debate about Australian indigenous historiography and conflict between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. One argument put in this debate was that some authors, including Windschuttle, were privileging

written history Recorded history or written history describes the historical events that have been recorded in a written form or other documented communication which are subsequently evaluated by historians using the historical method. For broader world his ...

(which was at that time invariably recorded by white Australians) over oral histories of indigenous people. These oral histories included accounts of the Mistake Creek massacre of indigenous people (including members of Timms' family). Angered by Windschuttle and others' claims, Timms and several other artists including Paddy Bedford created paintings documenting the events recorded in their oral histories. These paintings were exhibited in ''Blood on the spinifex'' at the

Ian Potter Museum of Art The Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia was established in 1972. The Potter, as it is known locally, presents a curated exhibition program of historical and contemporary art. Through its activities the Pot ...

in 2003. Timms collaborated with former gallerist Tony Oliver and others to create Jirrawun Arts, a company established to assist the development and sale of works by indigenous artists from parts of the Kimberley. By 2007 the company had become one of a very small number of profitable, privately financed, indigenous-owned and controlled businesses operating in the field of indigenous art.

Nicolas Rothwell Nicolas Rothwell is a journalist and the Northern Australia correspondent for ''The Australian'' newspaper. He is also an award-winning writer with two novels and several works of non-fiction to his name. Background Rothwell is the child of Cze ...

, "A dream of a studio", '' The Weekend Australian – Review'', 21–22 July 2007, p. 9

References

External links

Freddie Ngarrmaliny Janama Timms
in the

Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...

Australian Aboriginal artists 1946 births 2017 deaths People from Warmun Community {{Australia-painter-stub