Albert Namatjira, was a Western Arrernte-speaking Aboriginal artist from the MacDonnell Ranges, west of Alice Springs in Central Australia. His western style landscapes made him a celebrated pioneer of contemporary Indigenous Australian art in the 1950s and the most famous Indigenous Australian of his generation. Despite celebrity and citizenship, Albert’s life was terribly affected by the tragic gap between the rhetoric and reality of assimilation policies. Even so, Albert was a proud Arrernte elder, and a skilled artist who stimulated a school of painting and inspired many. Namatjira Story provides a picture of one of Australian art’s most iconic figures.
