Barbara Weir

Barbara (originally Florrie)[1] Weir (c. 1945 – 3 January 2023)[2] is an Australian Aboriginal[notes 1] artist and politician.

In the 1970s Weir returned to her family territory of Utopia, 300 kilometres (190 mi) northeast of Alice Springs.

She became active in the local land rights movement of the 1970s and was elected the first woman president of the Indigenous Urapunta Council in 1985.

This was done under the Aborigines Protection Amending Act 1915, which authorized government or assigned officers in the territories to take half-caste children to be raised in British institutions to assimilate them to European culture.

[9] It was Torres who in 1963[9] or 1968,[7][10] when passing through Alice Springs, asked someone about Weir's mother; he discovered that Pwerle was alive and living at Utopia.

[10][15][16] Weir was active in the local land rights movement of the 1970s, working to recover Aboriginal territory.

Art expert Jenny Green has commented, "In some of her paintings residual traces of women's ceremonial designs are almost entirely obscured by the heavy textural application of natural ochres.