Title
Aboriginal stockmen
circa 1953
Artist
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Details
- Other Title
- Station boys
- Date
- circa 1953
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 76.5 x 60.9 cm stretcher; 87.8 x 72.5 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed l.r. corner, red oil "Russell Drysdale". Not dated.
- Credit
- Gift of Ausgrid on behalf of the New South Wales Government 2013
- Location
- Naala Nura, ground level, 20th-century galleries
- Accession number
- 95.2013
- Copyright
- © Estate of Russell Drysdale
- Artist information
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Russell Drysdale
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
In 1951 Russell Drysdale travelled to Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland where he developed an interest in Indigenous Australians as a subject for his work. Many of the paintings he produced during this time depict Aboriginal subjects in urban and rural settings, and reveal the artist’s objective compassion toward the people he met and painted. These works formed a significant social comment on the sense of displacement experienced by Indigenous people during the early 1950s in Australia.
'Aboriginal stockmen' emanates from this period and presents two young Indigenous Australian stockmen standing side-by-side in a photographic-type format. Portraying the young men at a close proximity – in comparison to related works, such as ('Group of Aboriginal people') (1953) – the painting establishes a more intimate connection between its subject and the viewer.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 2 exhibitions
Russell Drysdale (1953), Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 18 Nov 1953–04 Dec 1953
20th-Century galleries, ground level (rehang), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Aug 2022–2023
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Bibliography
Referenced in 2 publications
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Macquarie Galleries, Russell Drysdale, 'Catalogue', Sydney, 1953, n.pag.. cat.no. 14
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John Saxby (Editor), Look, 'Lost boys from the bush found in the city', pg. 10, Sydney, May 2015, 10, 28 (colour illus.).
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