Lin Onus (4 December 1948 – 23 October 1996), born William McLintock Onus and also known as Lin Burralung McLintock Onus, was an Australian artist of

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

Aboriginal Aborigine, aborigine or aboriginal may refer to: *Aborigines (mythology), in Roman mythology * Indigenous peoples, general term for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area *One of several groups of indigenous peoples, see ...

origins. He was the son of activist

Bill Onus William Townsend Onus Jnr (15 November 1906 – 10 January 1968) was an Aboriginal Australian political activist, designer, and showman, also known for his boomerang-throwing skills. He was father of artist Lin Onus. Early life and educ ...

Early life

William McLintock Onus was born at St. George's Hospital, Kew,

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

on 4 December 1948 His father William Townsend Onus Jr (Bill), a

Yorta Yorta The Yorta Yorta, also known as Jotijota, are an Aboriginal Australian people who have traditionally inhabited the area surrounding the junction of the Goulburn and Murray Rivers in present-day north-eastern Victoria and southern New South Wal ...

man, became the founder of the

Aboriginal Advancement League The Aboriginal Advancement League was founded in 1957 as the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League (VAAL), is the oldest Aboriginal rights organisation in Australia still in operation. Its precursor organisations were the Australian Aborig ...

and was the first Aboriginal JP, dying in 1968, a year after a long campaign bore fruit – the success of the referendum giving the national government responsibility for Aboriginal affairs and including Aboriginal people in the determination of the country's population. Onus was educated in the 1950s and 1960s at Deepdene Primary School and

Balwyn High School Balwyn High School is a state-run high school (years 7–12) in the Melbourne suburb of North Balwyn, in Victoria, Australia. It was established in 1954. As of February 2013, it had 1948 students, making it the fourth largest secondary school in ...

in Melbourne, Victoria. He was largely a self-taught urban artist who, after being expelled from Balwyn High School for fighting, became a mechanic and spray painter, before making artefacts for the tourist market with his father's business, Aboriginal Enterprise Novelties.

Career

Onus became a successful painter, sculptor and printmaker. The works of Onus often involve symbolism from Aboriginal styles of painting, along with recontextualisation of contemporary artistic elements. The images in his works include haunting portrayals of the

Barmah Barmah is a town in the state of Victoria, Australia. Barmah has the distinction of being located north of the border with the state of New South Wales. New South Wales is north of Victoria, with the border being the westward-flowing Murray ...

red gum forests of his father's ancestral country, and the use of

rarrk Bark painting is an Australian Aboriginal art form, involving painting on the interior of a strip of tree bark. This is a continuing form of artistic expression in Arnhem Land (especially among the Yolngu peoples) and other regions in the Top ...

cross-hatching-based painting style that he learned (and was given permission to use) when visiting the Indigenous communities of

Maningrida Maningrida, also known as Manayingkarírra and Manawukan, is an Aboriginal community in the heart of the Arnhem Land region of Australia's Northern Territory. Maningrida is east of Darwin, and north east of Jabiru. It is on the North Central A ...

in 1986. His most famous work, ''Michael and I are just slipping down to the pub for a minute'', has been featured on a postcard, and is a reference to his colleague, artist

Michael Eather Michael Eather (born 1963) is a contemporary Australian artist based in Brisbane, who helped found the Campfire Group, a significant cross-cultural artistic collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists. Eather grew up and was educ ...

. The painting is of a

dingo The dingo (''Canis familiaris'', ''Canis familiaris dingo'', ''Canis dingo'', or '' Canis lupus dingo'') is an ancient (basal) lineage of dog found in Australia. Its taxonomic classification is debated as indicated by the variety of scient ...

riding on the back of a

stingray Stingrays are a group of sea rays, which are cartilaginous fish related to sharks. They are classified in the suborder Myliobatoidei of the order Myliobatiformes and consist of eight families: Hexatrygonidae (sixgill stingray), Plesiobatid ...

which is meant to symbolise his mother's and father's cultures combining in reconciliation. The image of the wave is borrowed from ''

The Great Wave off Kanagawa is a woodblock print by Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist Hokusai, created in late 1831 during the Edo period of Japanese history. The print depicts three boats moving through a storm-tossed sea, with a large wave forming a spiral in the centre an ...

'' (1832), by Japanese printmaker,

Katsushika Hokusai , known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock print series '' Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'', which includes the iconic print ''The Great W ...

Honours and awards

*1993:

Member of the Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian ...

"for service to the arts as a painter and sculptor and to the promotion of aboriginal artists and their work" * 1994:

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Art Award The Australian Heritage Commission (AHC), was the Australian federal government authority established in 1975 by the ''Australian Heritage Commission Act 1975'' as the first body to manage natural and cultural heritage in Australia until its de ...

, for ''Barmah Forest'' () *2012: Inducted to the Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll

Exhibitions

A major retrospective of Onus' work, entitled ''Urban Dingo: The Art of Lin Onus (Burrinja) 1948-1996'', was held at

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), located on George Street in Sydney's The Rocks neighbourhood, is solely dedicated to exhibiting, interpreting, and collecting contemporary art, from across Australia and around the world. It is ...

in Sydney in 2000. Curated by Margo Neale and organised by the

Queensland Art Gallery The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) is an art museum located in South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA. It complements the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) building, situated only away. The Queensland Art Galler ...

, it was developed before his death and staged with the assistance of his family.

Major collections

* Art Gallery of New South Wales *

Holmes à Court Collection Holmes may refer to: Name * Holmes (surname) * Holmes (given name) * Baron Holmes, noble title created twice in the Peerage of Ireland * Chris Holmes, Baron Holmes of Richmond (born 1971), British former swimmer and life peer Places In the U ...

Film

Lin Onus was credited for the sound production on a 1972 film called ''Blackfire'', directed by

Bruce McGuinness Bruce Brian McGuinness (17 June 1939 – 5 September 2003) was an Australian Aboriginal activist. He was active in and led the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League, and is known for founding and running ''The Koorier'', which was the first ...

, which was thought to be the first film made by an Indigenous Australian. However, the discovery of a short film made by Lin's father Bill made in 1946 in 2021 has put this claim into doubt.

Death and legacy

Lin Onus died suddenly of a heart attack on 23 October 1996 at the age of 47 in Melbourne. He was cremated and his ashes scattered at the

Cummeragunja Cummeragunja Reserve or Cummeragunja Station, alternatively spelt Coomeroogunja, Coomeragunja, Cumeroogunga and Cummerguja, was a settlement on the New South Wales side of the Murray River, on the Victorian border near Barmah. It was also refer ...

cemetery on the NSW-Victorian border. The youth award in the

was renamed the Lin Onus Youth Prize from 1998.

Posthumous apology

On 8 December 2000, as part of

Aboriginal reconciliation Reconciliation in Australia is a process which officially began in 1991, focused on the improvement of race relations between the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia and the rest of the population. The Council for Aboriginal ...

, Peter Bond, Principal of Balwyn High School, at the school presentation night at Dallas Brooks Hall, issued a posthumous apology to Lin Onus for being expelled from Balwyn High School in the early 1960s.

Family

Onus was married twice, first to Rosemary Smith and then to Jo Kloster. He had a son with Rosemary and a daughter, and with Jo he had a son,

Tiriki Onus Tiriki is one of sixteen clans and dialects of the Abaluyia people of Western Kenya. The word ''Tiriki'' is also used to refer to their Geographical Location in Hamisi Division, Vihiga County, in the Western province of Kenya. Hamisi Constitue ...

. Tiriki became an

opera singer Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libret ...

and

filmmaker Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...

. He made a documentary film about his grandfather Bill Onus, released in 2021, called '' Ablaze'', in which he describes his discovery of a 1946 short film made by him. Tiriki, a

bass baritone A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing thre ...

singer, is () head of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development at the

Victorian College of the Arts The Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) is the arts school at the University of Melbourne in Australia. It is part of the university's Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. It is located near the Melbourne city centre on the Southbank campus of the ...

. His first role in opera was as his grandfather, in the premiere of

Deborah Cheetham Deborah Joy Cheetham (born 24 November 1964), is an Aboriginal Australian soprano, actor, composer and playwright. Early life and education Cheetham is a member of the Stolen Generations; she was taken from her mother when she was three weeks ...

’s ''Pecan Summer'' in 2010 at

Mooroopna Mooroopna is a rural town located north of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is on the banks of the Goulburn River opposite the larger town of Shepparton. The Midland Highway crosses the river between the two towns. At the 2016 census, Moor ...

References

External links

Lin Onus
on

DAAO The ''Dictionary of Australian Artists'' (DAA) was the outcome of a project begun in the 1970s at the University of Sydney under the leadership of Bernard Smith, and was continued after his retirement in 1981 by Joan Kerr. The dictionary wen ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Onus, Lin 1948 births 1996 deaths Australian Aboriginal artists Wiradjuri people Yorta Yorta people Australian painters Australian sculptors Australian printmakers 20th-century Scottish painters Scottish male painters Australian people of Scottish descent Artists from Melbourne Members of the Order of Australia 20th-century Scottish male artists