Art & Life contains extracts from diaries, letters, essays, travelogues and poetry written by Elizabeth Durack (1915-2́000) over the course of seven decades. With wit and candour, the writing reveals some of the most important influences and episodes – and the paradox – of her life. Durack read and travelled widely and drew inspiration from many sources: from the men and women she knew; from classical Western and ancient Aboriginal traditions; and from contemporary politics.
275 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm. AS NEW COPY #200622
Durack, Elizabeth, 1915-2000. | Art, Australian — 20th century. | Australian essays — 20th century. | Australian
Elizabeth Durack Clancy CMG, OBE (6 July 1915 – 25 May 2000) was a Western Australian artist and writer.
Born in the Perth suburb of Claremont on 6 July 1915, she was a daughter of Kimberley pioneer, Michael Patrick Durack (1865–1950)[1] and his wife, Bessie Johnstone Durack. She was the younger sister of writer and historian Dame Mary Durack (1913–1994).[1] The sisters were educated at the Loreto Convent in Perth, and also on the Kimberley cattle stations, Argyle Downs and Ivanhoe. It was there that they established unique and enduring relationships with the Mirriuwong-Gajerrong people of the Ord River region. In 1936–37 the sisters travelled to Europe where Elizabeth studied at the Chelsea Polytechnic, London.
Her work was notable for the way it combined and reflected both western and aboriginal perceptions of the world. Based for much of her life in remote parts of north and central Western Australia, far from the metropolitan centres of mainstream artistic activity, Durack received stimulus and inspiration from sources quite different from those of her contemporaries, e.g. William Dobell, Arthur Boyd, Albert Tucker, et al. Separated by both geography and gender, her talent emerged “… original, versatile and persistent, a xerophytic adaptation, almost, to a particularly harsh environment”.[2]

From August 1946 when she held her first exhibition in Perth, to July 2000 when an exhibition planned by the artist was held posthumously in London, Elizabeth Durack held 65 solo exhibitions and participated in many group shows. Over that time her art evolved from simple line drawings, through part-abstract metaphorical works, to the transcendent masterworks of her last creative phase.[3][4]

Durack’s work included a number of dyeline prints, hand coloured in watercolour, depicting life on a Kimberley cattle station (Ivanhoe and Lissadell pastoral stations). Aboriginal women and children feature in these pictures, four of which can be seen at the National Museum of Australia.[5]

In the beginning . . . (Genesis 1) 1997, mixed media on linen, diptych, each 190×92
Illustrations

Some of Elizabeth Durack’s earliest published illustrations are of aboriginal life in Western Australia, for example her illustrations for the 1935 book “All-About: The Story of a Black Community on Argyle Station, Kimberley”.[6][4] “Elizabeth Durack is credited with illustrating the book Who rides the river? by JK Ewers, released in 1956.[7] Illustrations were provided by Durack for a new edition of Australian Legendary Tales in 1953, Aboriginal tales edited and selected by Henrietta Drake-Brockman from those collected and translated by K. Langloh Parker. This edition was chosen by the Children’s Book Council of Australia as “Book of the Year” for 1954.[8]

She and her sister also made a comic strip, Nungalla and Jungalla in 1942-1943.[9] In the 1990s, artworks by indigenous artist “Eddie Burrup” began to appear on the Aboriginal art scene. Paintings by ‘Eddie Burrup’ were first displayed in January 1995 in a mixed exhibition at Kimberley Fine Art—Durack Gallery, Broome, Western Australia. The gallery was run by Elizabeth’s daughter, Perpetua Durack Clancy.[10] In January 1996 Eddie Burrup was invited to participate in Native Titled Now, a 1996 Adelaide Festival of Arts Event presented by the Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, March–April 1996. Later in the year works by Eddie Burrup were selected for the Telstra 13th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, 17 August–19 October 1996. In 1997 Elizabeth Durack disclosed that Burrup was her pseudonym, an identity she considered her “alter ego”. Controversy ensued, in part because her works had been included in Indigenous Australian art exhibitions.[11][12]

Durack freely assumed the right to make Aboriginal art as Burrup.[13] This was not appreciated by other Aboriginal artists nor the gallery owner who represented “Burrup”. Durack continued to make art as Eddie Burrup until her death on 25 May 2000, aged 84. Responses from the art world and the public ranged widely. Some censured Elizabeth Durack and dismissed Burrup paintings that previously had been acclaimed.[14] Three works by Eddie Burrup from Native Titled Now were removed from the walls of the Gippsland Art Gallery in Sale, Victoria.[15] Members of the Aboriginal art community claimed that Durack had stolen indigenous culture and John Mundine, an Aboriginal art curator, remarked that “it’s the last thing left that you could possibly take away other than our lives or shoot us all.” Doreen Mellor, who had curated the Native Titled Now exhibition, stated that “as an Aboriginal person I feel really offended.”[16] Durack was bemused by the controversy, remarking “I’m just using a nom de plume. Why are people so interested in the fact of what I’ve done?”[13]