FROM the remote Australian desert to the opulence of Buckingham Palace, Namatjira Project is the iconic story of the Namatjira family.
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It traces their quest for justice over many years.
Albert Namatjira was a man caught between cultures; he was paraded as a great Australian, while treated with contempt at the same time.
He was the first Indigenous person to be made a citizen by the Australian government.
The founder of the Indigenous art movement in Australia, his artworks gave many Australians their first glimpses into the outback heart of the country.
He was widely celebrated, exhibited globally and introduced to Queen Elizabeth.
Born and raised at the Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission outside Alice Springs, Namatjira showed interest in art from an early age, but it was not until 1934 (aged 32), under the tutelage of Rex Battarbee, that he began to paint seriously.
Namatjira's richly detailed, Western art-influenced watercolours of the outback departed significantly from the abstract designs and symbols of traditional Aboriginal art, and inspired the Hermannsburg School of painting.
He became a household name in Australia and reproductions of his works hung in many homes throughout the nation.
In 1957, Namatjira was imprisoned for something he didn’t do, and in August 1959 he died, a broken man.
In 1983, the government sold the copyright to his artworks to an art dealer.
Today his family fights for survival, justice and to regain their grandfather’s copyright.
This is one of Australia’s most potent stories, illuminating the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people today.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that the Namatjira Project documentary contains images and voices of deceased persons.