Gloria Tamerre Petyarre — Artist, Legacy & Bush Medicine Leaves Paintings
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Gloria Tamerre Petyarre — A Life Painted in Leaves, Legacy and Love
There are artists you admire from a distance, and then there are those who walk into your life and leave a mark that no painting could ever fully capture. For our family, Gloria Tamerre Petyarre was both.
My mother Lori knew Gloria personally, not just as the celebrated artist the art world came to revere, but as a woman. A friend. A guest at our family cottage in Alice Springs, where Gloria stayed on more than one occasion when she needed a place to rest her head. It is one thing to hang a Gloria Petyarre painting on your wall. It is another thing entirely to have shared meals, laughter and quiet conversation with the woman who painted it.
Mum speaks of Gloria with nothing but warmth and deep fondness. She was, in Lori's words, a genuinely down-to-earth person. A kind and honest woman who happened to be one of the greatest artists this country has ever produced. She had a wonderful sense of humour and a generosity of spirit that drew people to her naturally. As the matriarch of her family, she carried her responsibilities with quiet strength supporting and caring for her extended family in the way that has always been central to Aboriginal culture and community life. Gloria is deeply missed by our family, and by all who were lucky enough to know her.
It feels important to us to share this, because when you purchase a Gloria Petyarre painting through Altyerre Aboriginal Art, you are not simply acquiring a valuable artwork. You are bringing home a piece of a life that was lived with extraordinary purpose, creativity and grace.
So, Who Was Gloria Tamerre Petyarre?
Gloria was born around 1945 at Mosquito Bore in the Utopia region of the Northern Territory, approximately 260 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs. She was an Anmatyerre woman of Aknangkere country and one of seven sisters, every one of them an artist, who together formed one of the most remarkable creative families in the story of Australian art. She was also the niece of the legendary Emily Kame Kngwarreye, whose own extraordinary career has become the stuff of art history.
From the very beginning, Gloria's life was shaped by culture, country and ceremony. The Anmatyerre people have a profound connection to the land, and it is this connection, to the plants, the seasons, the stories passed down through generations of women, that would eventually find its way onto canvas and into the hearts of collectors around the world.
From Batik to Brushstroke — The Beginning of a Career
Long before Gloria ever picked up a paintbrush, she was working with fabric. In the late 1970s she became part of the Utopia Women's Silk Batik Group, learning to create strikingly beautiful designs on silk and cotton. Her batik works were exhibited both in Australia and overseas throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, slowly building a reputation that would grow far beyond anyone's early expectations.
In 1988 everything changed. Gloria was among the very first group of Utopia artists invited to experiment with acrylic paint on canvas, a project that would later become known as the Summer Project, and one of the most significant moments in the history of contemporary Aboriginal art. Her very first canvas depicted Awelye, the sacred body paint designs that women apply during ceremony. It was an intimate and powerful beginning.
The Bush Medicine Leaves Dreaming — A Signature Unlike Any Other
Ask anyone familiar with Australian Aboriginal art to picture a Gloria Petyarre painting and the image that comes to mind is almost always the same, a sweeping, swirling mass of leaf-shaped brushstrokes, layered and alive, moving across the canvas like leaves caught in a sudden gust of wind.
The Bush Medicine Leaves dreaming connects directly to Gloria's country and her ancestors. Across the Central Australian desert, a rich variety of native plants have been used medicinally by the Anmatyerre people for countless generations, among them the Kurrajong (Brachychiton), the many species of Eremophila which are particularly abundant across this country, and various other native shrubs each carrying their own healing properties. The leaves are gathered and carefully prepared, the method depending entirely on their intended use and this knowledge, so deeply practical and so deeply sacred, has been passed from woman to woman across countless generations. For Gloria, painting these leaves was not simply an artistic choice. It was an act of cultural memory and profound respect for the women who came before her.
What makes her Bush Medicine Leaves paintings so extraordinary is how they evolved over time. Her earlier works are characterised by finer, more delicate strokes, precise and intricate, the leaves rendered with careful attention. As her career matured, her style became bolder and more expressive. The brushstrokes grew broader, the colours richer and more daring, the energy on the canvas almost electric. These later works, sometimes called her Big Leaf paintings are among the most sought after of her entire career.
If you are looking at a Gloria Petyarre Bush Medicine Leaves painting and wondering which period it comes from, look at the brushwork. Fine and layered in the earlier period. Bold, gestural and sweeping in he later career. Both are exceptional. Both are deeply collected.
Why Is Gloria Petyarre So Famous?
In 1999 Gloria made history. She won the Wynne Prize for Landscape at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, one of Australia's most prestigious and longest-running art awards, becoming the first Aboriginal artist ever to win a major prize at that institution. The winning work was a vast, shimmering canvas of gold and green leaf forms set against a dark ground, alive with movement and energy. It stopped the art world in its tracks.
She went on to be a Wynne Prize finalist multiple times, including a highly commended result in 2004, and her work was regularly selected for the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards; the most important Indigenous art prize in the country.
Then in 2009 came perhaps the most extraordinary recognition of all. The Parisian fashion house Hermès, one of the most iconic luxury brands in the world, commissioned Gloria to create a design for their signature silk scarf collection. Her Leaves design, titled Le Rêve de Gloria meaning Gloria's Dreaming, was released as part of their spring/summer Invitation to Travel collection and sold internationally. She was the first Australian artist ever to receive this honour.
Her Dreaming's
While Bush Medicine Leaves is her most recognised subject, Gloria's artistic world was rich and varied. Her dreaming's included the Mountain Devil Lizard (Arnkerrthe) and Awelye; the sacred women's ceremony and body paint designs, each one a thread in the complex and living tapestry of Anmatyerre culture and knowledge."
Where Is Her Work Held?
Gloria's paintings are held in major public institutions across Australia including the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Queensland Art Gallery, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. Her work is also held in the Holmes à Court Collection and in private collections across Australia, Europe, the United States and beyond.
A Final Word — From Our Family to Yours
Gloria Tamerre Petyarre passed away in June 2021. The art world mourned. Her family mourned. And so did ours.
Our mother Lori thinks of her often, of her laughter, her warmth, her quiet dignity. Of the woman who sat in our cottage in Alice Springs and was simply, beautifully, herself. We feel a deep sense of privilege and responsibility in representing her work, and we do so with the greatest of care and respect.
At Altyerre Aboriginal Art, every Gloria Petyarre painting we offer was purchased directly from the artist. Each comes with a gallery certificate of authenticity, and where working photographs of Gloria painting exist, these are included, a rare and precious record of a remarkable woman at work.
In keeping with traditional Indigenous custom, we do not display photographs of Gloria or any artist who has passed. We honour the old ways, and we thank you for understanding and respecting this.