Hermannsburg School
The Hermannsburg School is an Aboriginal art style that developed in the Hermannsburg Mission in the early 1930s . This art movement began 125 kilometers west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory in the cultural area of the Western Desert . The place Hermannsburg was founded by Lutheran missionaries in 1877. The most famous representative of this Aboriginal art movement was Albert Namatjira .
Painting style
The artistic expression of the western Arrernte aborigines, who had lived there for millennia, was symbolic and their totems showed people and nature. The patterns they used were parallel lines or radial and round shapes. This visualized language was expressed in sand, on rocks, and in sacred objects.
When pastor FW Albrecht showed landscape paintings from their country by the European artists Rex Battarbee and John Gardner in an exhibition at the Lutheran Mission in Hermannsburg in 1934, Albert Namatjira and other Aborigines were encouraged and inspired to paint. This created the so-called painting school of Hermannsburg. The painters of the Hermannsburg School created landscape pictures with watercolors. This style of painting became popular and the works were shown and sold at exhibitions in Melbourne , Adelaide and other cities.
painter
The painter Albert Namatjira became the first Aboriginal Australian citizen to receive full rights because of his notoriety and popularity. Other significant artists of this style are Wenten Rubuntja , Walter Ebatarinja and Otto Pareroultja. Today Hermannsburg is known for its pottery that Aboriginal women create.