19 Masterworks from the National Gallery of Australia

The Bronze Weaver
ca. 6th Century A.D.
Flores Island
Accession Number: 2006.412
© National Gallery of Australia

19 Masterworks from the National Gallery of Australia

Curated by Steven G. Alpert

Australia's National Gallery (NGA) is located in the nation's capital, Canberra. While a relatively new art museum, the NGA is a regional tour de force and a destination of international renown. It houses the world's largest and most important collections of Australian aboriginal art, as well as significant islander art from the Torres Strait region. In terms of older artworks from diverse traditions, there is plenty for the eye and the soul to feast upon within the museum's collections. Each of the items selected here illustrates the museum's pride in connoisseurship and deep appreciation for the creativity of others through iconic works that transcend portals of time, culture, and geographical boundaries.

In the realm of Indonesian art, the NGA's extensive hoard of textiles was ably built and stewarded over many years by its former curator, Robyn Maxwell. Many of the collection's marquee items came from noteworthy period field collectors and dealers, particularly Anita Spertus and Jeff Holmgren, as well as from myself and numerous others. Maxwell's finely illustrated book, Textiles of Southeast Asia, is a voluminous primer that is widely considered a classic and one of the most informative works on Indonesian and Southeast Asian textiles ever accomplished.

Among the museum's non-textile holdings from the Malay Indonesian archipelago, the Borneo salong panel with its sizeable looming face stands out as a rare surviving example of older Modang carving. It is illustrated here along with a fine memorial carving of a Nias ancestor figure in stone.

Perhaps the most iconic piece of all in the Indonesian collection and of special historical relevance for its subject matter and age is the enigmatic bronze figure of a woman working on a back-strap loom with an infant suckling at her breast. She is recorded as coming from a small village to the south of Larantuka on the eastern island of Flores. Said to date from around the 6th century AD, this centuries-old masterpiece is beautifully rendered and cast using the lost-wax process. "The Bronze Weaver" is among the many Bronze Age, or greater Bronze Age kettle drums, axes, vessels, and rare metal items that were not of local manufacture that were somehow transported to and circulated in the 'outer islands.' Many of these exemplary items came to reside on some of the archipelago's more remote islands and among some of its most traditionally oriented societies. Before entering the NGA's collection, this impressive figure, nearly eleven inches tall, was prominent in the renowned collection of George Ortiz in Geneva, Switzerland. Over the years, I spent many a day and evening at the Ortiz home holding the weaver in my hands while marveling at its Delphic qualities and sheer magnificence. This figure underscores the role those precious and costly goods, whether of foreign manufacture or locally created, played and still play in the ceremonial life of Indonesian societies. Many of these exemplary items came to reside on some of the archipelago's more remote islands and among some of its most traditionally oriented societies.

Another seminal piece shining through the mists of antiquity is the Ambum stone rendering of an anteater from New Guinea. Purportedly around 3,500 years old, it is yet another tour de force item. The surface is pecked and pebbled with an extraordinary level of control and skilled precision. The quality of this figure is a suggestive reminder that we know so very little about the early ancient pre-history of the most linguistically diverse place on earth.

The NGA also stewards important New Guinea items from Indonesian West Papua. A Geelvinck Bay Korwar or ancestor figure with one raised arm and inlaid yellow bead eyes, or the collection's important Lake Sentani maro barkcloth painting are outstanding pieces, as is the Cenderawasih Bay ceremonial beaded dancing apron, which compares quite favorably to similar rare figurative examples in the Dallas Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen in the Netherlands.

The NGA's ex-Viot double-figured ancestor statue from Lake Sentani is one of the finest and most recognizable large sculptures extant from this region. It originates from the only group in Indonesia or Southeast Asia to ever directly influence a major Western art movement. In this instance, it was surrealism. In Paris in the 1920-30s, a who's who of famous surrealist artists and thinkers were avid collectors of painted maro bark cloths as they were appreciative of the dream-like imagery from Lake Sentani, and in particular by the extraordinary designs that appeared on maro and some of their wood carvings.

Finally, mention must also be of a small but choice group of Maori items in the NGA's collection. Among them is a remarkable carving from the inner structure of a war canoe that is centered by a riveting human figure decorated with a full moko or tattoos. Luckily, an obscure annotated drawing of the canoe and its inner ornament was done in situ by the artist George French Angus in 1844 (Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington: A-020-008). In the margin, he describes the carving as being a portrait of the canoe's owner, Te Rauparaha, the famous Maori rangatira or chief. The pairing of documentation, an ironclad provenance, and a beautiful object, in this case, a masterpiece, is a most winning and desirable of all combinations. If one is in Australia, a visit to Canberra and a chance to see these extraordinary pieces in person makes for a worthy and satisfactory pilgrimage.

— Steven G. Alpert, founder of Art of the Ancestors