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 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 educat ...

Early life

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

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

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 Wale ...

man, became the founder of the Aboriginal Advancement League 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 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 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 Bark is the outermost layer of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines, and shrubs. Bark ref ...

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

Maningrida Maningrida ( Ndjébanna: ''Manayingkarírra'', Kuninjku: ''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 ...

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. The painting is of a

dingo The dingo (either included in the species ''Canis familiaris'', or considered one of the following independent taxa: ''Canis familiaris dingo'', ''Canis dingo'', or ''Canis lupus dingo'') is an ancient (basal (phylogenetics), basal) lineage ...

riding on the back of a

stingray Stingrays are a group of sea Batoidea, rays, a type of cartilaginous fish. They are classified in the suborder Myliobatoidei of the order Myliobatiformes and consist of eight families: Hexatrygonidae (sixgill stingray), Plesiobatidae (deepwate ...

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, cresting wave forming a spiral in t ...

'' (1832), by Japanese printmaker,

Katsushika Hokusai , known mononymously as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. His woodblock print series '' Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'' includes the iconic print ''The Great Wave off Kanagawa''. Ho ...

Honours and awards

*1993:

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

"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, 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), formerly the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, is located on George Street, Sydney, George Street in The Rocks, Sydney, The Rocks neighbourhood of Sydney. The museum is housed in the Stripped Cl ...

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 Galle ...

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

Major collections

Art Gallery of New South Wales The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most import ...

* Holmes à Court Collection

Film

Lin Onus was credited for the sound production on a 1972 film called ''Blackfire'', directed by Bruce McGuinness, 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 Victoria, Australia, Victorian border near Barm ...

cemetery on the NSW-Victorian border. The youth award in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Art Award was renamed the Lin Onus Youth Prize from 1998.

Posthumous apology

On 8 December 2000, as part of Aboriginal reconciliation, 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 became an

opera singer Opera is a form of Western 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 lib ...

and

filmmaker Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...

. 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 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 (FFAM). It is located near the Melbourne city centre on the Southbank campus ...

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

Deborah Cheetham Deborah Joy Cheetham Fraillon (born Deborah Joy Cheetham, 1964) is an Aboriginal Australian soprano, composer, and playwright. She leads Short Black Opera, based in Melbourne, which provides training and opportunities for emerging Aboriginal a ...

’s ''Pecan Summer'' in 2010 at

Mooroopna Mooroopna is a town located north of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. It is on the banks of the Goulburn River (Victoria), Goulburn River opposite the larger town of Shepparton. The Midland Highway (Victoria), Midland Highw ...

References

External links

Lin Onus
on

DAAO Design & Art Australia Online (DAAO) is an online database of Australian artists. It is fully integrated with other related databases, using syndicated metadata, making it a dynamic resource. It began as a project begun in the 1970s at the Uni ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Onus, Lin 1948 births 1996 deaths Australian Aboriginal artists Wiradjuri people Yorta Yorta people Australian male painters Australian male 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 20th-century Australian sculptors