Albert Namatjira emerges from the Copyright Dungeon

AAP-SBS News, October 2017,    where the title is “Albert Namatjira’s copyright deal: Rewriting a historical wrong”

An injustice has been righted more than 30 years on with the family and clan of famed Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira recovering the copyright to his work.  A 15-minute phone call and the princely sum of $1 have resolved what has been the country’s longest copyright battle for the rights to the works of Aboriginal painter Albert Namatjira. It is a victory for his family and clan who have been denied any rights or revenue from his work for more than 30 years, The Weekend Australian reported.

Namatjira, an Arrernte man from Central Australia, is recognised as Australia’s greatest indigenous painter and the first to work in the western tradition. He is best known for his watercolour paintings of the outback and created about 2000 artworks during his life.

**FILE** A Oct 19 2006 file photo of Albert Namatjira’s first painting is displayed at a Sotheby’s preview in Sydney. The auction of the Aboriginal art including Albert Namatjira’s first painting will be on in Melbourne today, Tuesday Oct. 31, 2006. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas) NO ARCHIVING

One of Namatjira’s paintings was gifted to the Queen in 1947 on her 21st birthday. Seven years later, the first indigenous artist to receive international acclaim met the Queen in Canberra during her 1954 coronation tour and presented her with another work.

He had sold part of the copyright to his friend John Brackenreg of Legend Press in 1957. He died aged 57 in 1959 and his will gave the rest of the copyright to his wife Robina and his family. However, the administration of his will was handed to the Northern Territory public trustee which sold the full copyright to Legend Press for $8500 in 1983. The family was never consulted. Legend Press put restrictions on the use of Namatjira’s paintings and images and the royalties to his family dried up.

The campaign to regain the copyright for the artist’s family began eight years ago, helmed by arts company Big HART. They put together a show called Namatjira which took the artist’s grandchildren, artists themselves, to London where they met the Queen.

Big HART is also showing a documentary called the Namatjira Project at the Adelaide Film Festival this week, the ABC reports.

Enter Dick Smith, multimillionaire and philanthropist. Mr Smith’s father had once worked for art dealer Mr Brackenreg, who died in 1986. With that connection, Mr Smith reached out to his son Philip, one of the current owners of Legend Press. They chatted for 15 minutes and the long legal stoush came to an end with Mr Philip Brackenreg signing over the rights to the Namatjira Legacy Trust for $1. In return Mr Smith donated $250,000 to the trust.

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ALSO NOTE

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Namatjira

• Trust seeks rights to life and work of painting legend Albert Namatjira

“The trust is not about the past, it’s actually about the future. It’s about setting things right,” said Big hART producer Sophia Marinos, who has been working with the Namatjira family for the past seven years.

Ms Pannka said the trust and the painting she and Ms Namatjira do at Iltja Ntjarra Many Hands Art Centre in Alice Springs is about honouring their grandfather’s life.

In 1983 the Northern Territory Public Trustee sold Albert Namatjira’s estate to Legend Press, owned by art dealer John Brackenberg, for $8500. Brackenberg’s Sydney-based children own the copyright, which expires in 2029.

“Albert represents something to be proud of, but we won’t be … happy until we know that the legacy is being looked after by its rightful owners: his family,” Ms Pannka said. “We are hoping … to achieve better living conditions for our families, better schooling for our kids and better resources for our arts centre.”