Lot 3045

"Namatjira's death, on 8 August 1959, is portrayed as moral crucifixion upon the social mores of the God-fearing society of the time in Noel Counihan's linocut Albert Namatjira 1959. Counihan, a noted communist and social realist artist, depicted Namatjira as a crucified figure looming above the spires of a city church.

A hand-printed impression of this linocut was reproduced to accompany the article by Noel Counihan, 'A tribute to a Great Man-Albert Namatjira', The Guardian, Melbourne, 27 August, 1959, p. 4. Counihan described his meeting with Namatjira in 1956 at a function given for him by Melbourne writers: 'He sat directly opposite me and said hardly a word except in answer to a direct question. I made two or three drawings on the basis of the sketch'. (Noel Counihan, letter to Robert Smith, 1 October 1978, quoted in Robert Smith, Noel Counihan prints, 1931-1981: a catalogue raisonée, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1981, p. 78). A reproduction of a drawing, derived from the sketch described here, appears on the cover of the journal featuring another article by Noel Counihan, 'The tragedy of Albert Namatjira,' Overland, no.13, spring 1958, p. 2, pl. 1. See also Smith, 1981, pp. 78-9.

The poignancy of Counihan's allegory is emphasised when it is compared with the portrait by Sir William Dargie painted from life in Sydney three years earlier, in December 1956, at the height of Namatjira's fame." National Gallery of Australia, 2010.