Minnie Pwerle
She came from Utopia, Northern Territory (Unupurna in local language), a cattle station in the Sandover area of Central Australia 300 kilometres (190 mi) northeast of Alice Springs.
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.
[6] Minnie was one of the traditional owners of Utopia station recognised in the 1980 Indigenous land claim made over the property;[1] her particular country was known as Atnwengerrp.
[4] Pwerle (in the Anmatyerre 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.
[10][13][16] Minnie went on to have six further children with her husband "Motorcar" Jim Ngala,[4] including Aileen, Betty, Raymond and Dora Mpetyane, and two others who by 2010 had died.
[17] Her grandchildren include Fred Torres, who founded private art gallery DACOU in 1993,[18] and artist Teresa Purla (or Pwerle).
[14] 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.
[2] When Minnie decided to take up painting in 2000 while she waited for her daughter Barbara to complete a canvas in an Adelaide workshop,[24] the reception was immediately positive: she had her first solo exhibition that same year at Melbourne's Flinders Lane Gallery.
[4][10] Desert art specialist Professor Vivien Johnson noted that Minnie was one of the Utopia artists whose style was "radically different from [that of] all the other painting communities in the Western Desert—and stunningly successful in the market place".
[4] 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.
[9][38] 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.
[41] Her works later formed the basis of a series of designer rugs,[42] and, together with paintings by her sisters, illustrated the cover of art critic Benjamin Genocchio's book, Dollar Dreaming.
[43] 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.
[44][45] 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,[46] Minnie is considered to be one of Australia's best-known Indigenous artists,[10] whose work "the market couldn't get enough [of]".
