Minnie Pwerle (also Minnie Purla
or Minnie Motorcar Apwerl;
born between 1910 and 1922 – 18 March 2006) was an Australian
Aboriginal artist. She came from
Utopia, Northern Territory (''Unupurna'' in local language), a cattle station in the
Sandover area of
Central Australia
Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Australia. In its narrowest sense it describes a region that is limited to the town of Alice Springs and ...
northeast of
Alice Springs
Alice Springs () is a town in the Northern Territory, Australia; it is the third-largest settlement after Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin and Palmerston, Northern Territory, Palmerston. The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William ...
.
Minnie began painting in 2000 at about the age of 80, and her pictures soon became popular and sought-after works of
contemporary Indigenous Australian art. In the years after she took up
painting on canvas until she died in 2006, Minnie's works were exhibited around Australia and collected by major galleries, including the
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 ...
, the
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and list of most visited art museums in the world, most visited art mu ...
and the
Queensland Art Gallery. With popularity came pressure from those keen to acquire her work. She was allegedly "kidnapped" by people who wanted her to paint for them, and there have been media reports of her work being forged. Minnie's work is often compared with that of her sister-in-law
Emily Kame Kngwarreye
Emily Kam Kngwarray (c.1914-1996) was born in her Ancestral lands, Alhalker located in the Sandover region of the Northern Territory, Australia. One of the world’s most significant contemporary painters to emerge in the twentieth century Kngw ...
, who also came from the Sandover and took up acrylic painting late in life. Minnie's daughter,
Barbara Weir, is a respected artist in her own right.
Personal life

Minnie was born in the early 20th century near
Utopia, Northern Territory, north-east of
Alice Springs, Northern Territory.
Utopia was a
cattle station that was returned to Indigenous ownership in the late 1970s.
It is part of a broader region known as the Sandover, containing about 20 Indigenous
outstations and centred on the Sandover River.
Minnie was one of the
traditional owners
Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title rig ...
of Utopia station recognised in the 1980 Indigenous
land claim
A land claim is "the pursuit of recognized territorial ownership by a group or individual". The phrase is usually only used with respect to disputed or unresolved land claims. Some types of land claims include Aboriginal title, aboriginal land cla ...
made over the property;
her particular country was known as Atnwengerrp.
''Pwerle'' (in the
Anmatyerre
The Anmatyerr (also spelt Anmatyerre, Anmatjera, Anmatjirra, Amatjere and other variations) are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory, who speak one of the Upper Arrernte languages.
Language
Anmatyerr is divided into Eas ...
language) or ''Apwerle'' (in
Alyawarr) is a
skin name, one of 16 used to denote the subsections or subgroups in the
kinship system of central Australian
Indigenous people. These names define kinship relationships that influence preferred marriage partners, and may be associated with particular totems. Although they may be used as terms of address, they are not surnames in the sense used by Europeans.
Thus "Minnie" is the element of the artist's name that is specifically hers.
Estimates of Minnie's birthdate vary widely. The National Gallery of Victoria estimates around 1915;
Birnberg's biographical survey of Indigenous artists from central Australia gives a birth date of around 1920;
''The new McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art'' suggests around 1922;
Elizabeth Fortescue's biographical essay in ''Art of Utopia'' offers a range between 1910 and 1920.
The uncertainty arises because Indigenous Australians often estimate dates of birth by comparison with other events, especially for those born before contact with European Australians.
Minnie was one of six children, and had three sisters: Molly, born around 1920, Emily, born around 1922, and Galya, born in the 1930s.
She was of the Anmatyerre and Alyawarre
Aboriginal language groups.
In about 1945, Minnie had an affair with a married man,
Jack Weir, described by one source as a pastoral station owner,
by a second as "an Irish Australian man who owned a cattle run called Bundy River Station", and by another as an Irish "stockman".
A relationship such as that between Minnie and Weir was illegal, and the pair were jailed; Weir died shortly after his release.
Minnie had a child from their liaison, who was partly raised by Minnie's sister-in-law, artist
Emily Kngwarreye,
and became prominent Indigenous artist
Barbara Weir. Barbara Weir was one of the
Stolen Generations. At about the age of nine, she was forcibly taken from her family, who believed she had then been killed. The family were reunited in the late 1960s, but Barbara did not form a close bond with Minnie. Barbara married Mervyn Torres, and as of 2000 had six children and thirteen grandchildren.
Minnie went on to have six further children with her husband "Motorcar" Jim Ngala,
including Aileen, Betty, Raymond and Dora Mpetyane, and two others who by 2010 had died.
Her grandchildren include Fred Torres, who founded
private art gallery DACOU in 1993,
and artist Teresa Purla (or Pwerle).
Minnie began painting in late 1999
or 2000,
when she was almost 80. When asked why she had not begun earlier (painting and batik works had been created at Utopia for over 20 years), her daughter Barbara Weir reported Minnie's answer as being that "no-one had asked her".
By the 2000s, she was reported as living at Alparra, the largest of Utopia's communities, or at Urultja (also Irrultja, again in the Sandover region).
Sprightly and outgoing, even in her eighties she could outrun younger women chasing
goannas for bushfood, and she continued to create art works until two days before her death on 18 March 2006.
She was outlived by all her sisters except Maggie Pwerle, mother of artists
Gloria and
Kathleen Petyarre (or Pitjara).
Career
In the 1970s and 1980s Utopia became well known for the design and production of
batik
Batik is a dyeing technique using wax Resist dyeing, resist. The term is also used to describe patterned textiles created with that technique. Batik is made by drawing or stamping wax on a cloth to prevent colour absorption during the dyein ...
s.
By 1981 there were 50 artists at Utopia creating batik works;
88 artists participated in a major design project supported by the
Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association
The Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) is an organisation founded in 1980 to expose Aboriginal music and culture to the rest of Australia. It started with 8KIN-FM, the first Aboriginal radio station in the country. Based in ...
.
Although several sources comment that artistic activity at Utopia began with batik and only later moved to painting, they do not state whether or not Minnie was a textile artist before she took up the brush. The National Gallery of Victoria's brief biography suggests that she did not participate in the making of batik, but she was aware of it.
When Minnie decided to take up painting in 2000 while she waited for her daughter Barbara to complete a canvas in an Adelaide workshop, the reception was immediately positive: she had her first solo exhibition that same year at Melbourne's Flinders Lane Gallery.
She was first selected to exhibit in the
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2002.
One of her pieces, ''Awelye Atnwengerrp'', was exhibited in the 2003 Award, in which her name was given as Minnie Motorcar Apwerl (Pwerle). The artist's asking price for the picture,
A$44,000, was the second-highest in the exhibition and the highest for an artist from the central and western deserts.
Her painting ''Awelye Atnwengerrp 2'' was exhibited in the 2005 competition.
She was named by ''
Australian Art Collector'' as one of Australia's 50 most collectible artists in 2004.
There were many group and solo exhibitions of Minnie's work at private galleries between 2000 and 2006. These included exhibitions at Japinka Gallery in Western Australia in 2003 and 2005, Adelaide's Dacou Gallery in 2000 and 2002,
Sydney's Gallery Savah between 2000 and 2002 as well as in 2006, and Melbourne's Flinders Lane Gallery in 2000, 2004 and 2006, the last of which was a joint exhibition conducted with her three sisters,
all of whom are artists in their own right.
Desert art specialist Professor
Vivien Johnson noted that Minnie was one of the Utopia artists whose style was "radically different from
hat ofall the other painting communities in the Western Desert—and stunningly successful in the market place".
Her most famous fellow artist was Emily Kngwarreye, whose painting ''
Earth's Creation'' in 2007 sold for over $1 million, setting a record for the price paid for a painting by an Indigenous Australian artist. Unlike Minnie, Emily had been an active participant in the early batik movement at Utopia.
Minnie (like Emily) was often placed under considerable pressure to produce works.
She was reportedly "kidnapped" by people "keen to go to often quite bizarre lengths to acquire" her work.
Minnie's experience reflected broader issues in the industry surrounding artists, who were often older, had limited education or English language ability, and faced serious poverty both themselves and amongst their families.
In addition to being pressured to paint by others, there were media reports suggesting that some of the vast number of paintings traded under Minnie's name were not created by her at all.
Style of painting
Minnie's style was spontaneous, and typified by "bold" and "vibrant" colour executed with great freedom.
Her works, such as ''Anunapa, Akali'' held by the National Gallery of Victoria, were executed in
acrylic (often referred to as synthetic polymer) paint on canvas.
As with other contemporary artists of the central and western deserts, her paintings included depictions of stories or features for which she had responsibility within her family or clan, such as the Awelye Atnwengerrp
dreaming (or ''Women's Dreaming''). Indigenous art expert Jenny Green believes Minnie's work continues the tradition of "
gestural abstractionism" established by Emily Kngwarreye, which contrasted with the use of recognisable traditional motifs—such as animal tracks—in the works of
Western Desert artists. Brisbane artist and gallerist
Michael Eather has likened her work not only to that of Emily, but also to Australian
abstract impressionist artist
Tony Tuckson.
Minnie's paintings include two main design themes. The first is free-flowing and parallel lines in a pendulous outline, depicting the
body painting
Body painting is a form of body art where artwork is painted directly onto the human skin. Unlike tattoos and other forms of body art, body painting is temporary, lasting several hours or sometimes up to a few weeks (in the case of mehndi or ...
designs used in women's ceremonies, or ''awelye''.
The second theme involves circular shapes, used to symbolise
bush tomato (''
Solanum chippendalei''), bush melon, and northern wild orange (''
Capparis umbonata''), among a number of forms of
bushfood represented in her works.
Together, the designs were characterised by one reviewer as "broad, luminescent flowing lines and circles".
Legacy
Minnie's art was quickly added to major public collections such as the
Art Gallery of NSW,
Art Gallery of South Australia,
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and list of most visited art museums in the world, most visited art mu ...
and
Queensland Art Gallery.
It was also included in a 2009 exhibition of Indigenous Australian painting at the
New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Her works later formed the basis of a series of designer rugs, and, together with paintings by her sisters, illustrated the cover of art critic
Benjamin Genocchio's book, ''Dollar Dreaming''.
Described by art dealer Hank Ebes as the works of "a genius", Minnie's paintings were typically selling for $5,000 in 2005; the highest price fetched on the secondary market at that time was $43,000.
Regarded as one of Australia's leading contemporary women artists, Minnie ranks alongside other notable Indigenous female painters
Dorothy Napangardi,
Gloria Petyarre and
Kathleen Petyarre.
One of a number of women such as Emily Kngwarreye who dominated central and western desert painting in the first decade of the 21st century,
Minnie is considered to be one of Australia's best-known Indigenous artists,
whose work "the market couldn't get enough
f.
Major collections
*
Art Gallery of NSW
*
Art Gallery of South Australia
*
Kelton Foundation
* Kreglinger Collection
*
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and list of most visited art museums in the world, most visited art mu ...
*
Queensland Art Gallery
* Thomas Vroom Collection
* Hank Ebes Collection
*
AMP Collection
References
External links
*
xample of Minnie's early work ''Anunapa, Akali'' (2001), National Gallery of Victoria.
Photographic portrait of the artistat Mbantua fine art gallery and cultural museum.
Minnie Pwerle on Artabase
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pwerle, Minnie
20th-century births
2006 deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Australian Aboriginal artists
Artists from the Northern Territory
20th-century Australian painters
21st-century Australian painters
20th-century Australian women painters
21st-century Australian women painters