Fire-Works gallery - Rover Thomas

		Born: c1926 Gunawaggi, Great Sandy Desert WA Died: 1998 Country: Warmun Region: Turkey Creek WA Rover was born around 1926 at, Well 33 on the Canning Stock Route, in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia and died in 1998. The Gidja style of Rover’s adopted country from the 1960s (Warmun, Turkey Creek) has a figurative orientation influenced by regional rock art and ceremonial body paint designs. He drew on both Western Desert and East Kimberley styles, creating a highly individual synthesis that is rare in the work of bush artists. Rover was awarded the John McCaughey Prize for the best painting Blancher country, displayed in 1990 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. The following year he represented Australia at the Venice Biennale. Rover was the subject of the important solo exhibition Roads Cross: The Paintings of Rover Thomas, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra in 1994. His work is held in private, corporate and public collections nationally and internationally.
		EXHIBITIONS-SOLO
	2004	Rover Thomas: I Want to Paint, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney
	2003	Rover Thomas: I Want to Paint, The Ian Potter Centre, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
	2002	The Paintings of Rover Thomas, Utopia Art Sydney
	1994	Roads Cross, The Paintings of Rover Thomas, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Rover Thomas, Utopia Art Sydney, Stanmore.
		EXHIBITIONS-GROUP
	2010	East Kimberley Painting Revisited, Michael Reid Gallery, Sydney
	2009	Abstraction, Utopia Art, Sydney
	2008	Unearthed: Stories Written in the Land, Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney
	2008	From the air fireworks gallery Brisbane
	2000	From Appropriation to Appreciation: Indigenous influences and images in Australian Visual Art, Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide Images of the Land, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
	1999	Myer Gatner Collection, America
	1997	Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Paintings, Songlines Aboriginal Art Gallery, Amsterdam, San Francisco Imaging the Land, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
	1996	Figures in the Land, National gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Abstraction: Signs, Marks, Symbols National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne This is my country, this is me, Seattle art museum, Seattle, America Contemporary Australian Abstraction, Niagara Galleries Melbourne Flagging the Republic, Sherman galleries, New England regional Gallery, Touring Nangara: The Australian Aboriginal Art exhibition, The Ebes Collection, Sichting Sint-Jan, Brugges, Belgium
	1995	Rover Thomas -Well 33 Revisited, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne Painting up the Country: Aboriginal art from the Kimberley WA, Cooee Aborignal art, Sydney The Festival of Darwin Art exhibition, Kimberley Printmakers Offset and Intaglio, Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle Made in the Kimberleys, Moores Buildin, Fremantle Northwest and Kimberley Artists, Durack Gallery, Kimberley Fine Art, Broome Latest Landscapes, Utopia Art, Sydney 12th NATSI Art Award Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin Stories: Eine Reise zu den Grossen Dingen - Elf Kunstler der australischen Aborigines. Werke aus der sammlung Holmes a Court, Perth - Sprengel Museum,Hannover-Museum Fur Volkerkunde zu leipzig - Haus der Kulturen der Welt, berlin - Ludwig Forum fur Internationale Kunstt, A Achen
	1994	This land: A Celebration Utopia Art, Sydney Power of the Land: Masterpieces of Aboriginal Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Roads Cross -The Paintings of Rover Thomas, National Gallery of Australia Rover Thomas New Paintings, Utopia Art, Sydney Power of the Land, Masterpieces of Aboriginal Art, National Gallery of Victoria Identities: Art from Australia, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan, Wollongong City Gallery Australian Heritage Commission National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award Exhibition, Old Parliament House, Canberra This Land: A Celebration, Utopia Art Sydney, Stanmore Yiribana, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 1993/4 ARATJARA, Art of the First Australians, Touring: Kunstammlung Nordrhein- Westfalen,Dusseldorf; Hayward Gallery, London; Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, Denmark
	1993	Trevor Nickolls and Paintings by Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Ginger Riley Manduwalawala and Rover Thomas, Hogarth Galleries, Sydney The Tenth National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin Images of Power, Aboriginal Art of the Kimberley, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
	1992	Crossroads-Towards a New Reality, Aboriginal Art from Australia, National Museums of Modern Art, Kyoto and Tokyo 1991 Aboriginal Art and Spirituality, High Court, Canberra Flash Pictures, National Gallery of Australia Walkabout in the Dreamtime, Virginia Miller Gallery, Miami, Florida, America
	1990	Contemporary Aboriginal Art 1990: From Australia, Third Eye Centre, Glasgow and touring UK Anatjari Tjampitjinpa, Dini Campbell Tjampitjinpa and Rover Thomas, John Weber Gallery, New York, USA The Seventh National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin Venice Biennale: Australian Representative, with Trevor Nickolls Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia Balance 1990: views, visions, influences, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane Contemporary Aboriginal Art from the Robert Holmes a Court Collection, Harvard University, University of Minnesota, Lake Oswego Center for the Arts, United States of America L’ete Australian a Montpellier, Musee Fabre, France Innovations in Aboriginal Art, Hogarth Galleries, Sydney The Singing Earth, Chapman Gallery, Canberra Abstraction, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
	1989	On the Edge, five contemporary Aboriginal artists, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth Turkey Creek: Recent Work, Deutscher Gertrude Street, Melbourne A Myriad of Dreaming: Twentieth Century Aboriginal Art, Westpac Gallery, Melbourne; Design Warehouse Sydney [through Lauraine Diggins Fine Art] Masterpiece Fine Art Gallery, Hobart l’ete Australien a’ Montpellier, Musee Fabre Gallery, Montpellier, France
	1988	ANCAAA and Boomalli, Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative, Sydney Art from the Kimberley, Aboriginal Artists Gallery, Sydney Innovative Aboriginal Art of Western Australia, University of Western Australia, Perth Recent Aboriginal Painting, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide Creating Australia: 200 Years of Art 1788-1988, International Cultural Corporation of Australia, Touring Australian Art Post-1960, Deutscher Gallery, Brunswick
	1987	Aboriginal Art from the Kimberley, Goolarabooloo Gallery, Broome Art of the East Kimberley, Birrukmarri Gallery, Perth Recent Aboriginal Art from Western Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 1986 The Third National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
		COLLECTIONS
		National Gallery of Australia, Canberra National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Parliament House Collection, Canberra Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin Oodgeroo Collection, Qld University of Technology Collection Artbank, Sydney The Holmes a Court Collection, Perth Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of Western Australia Edith Cowan University Art Collection, Perth Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide Kluge-Ruhe Collection, Virginia, America Myer Gatner Collection, America The Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica, America Thomas Vroom Collection, The Netherlands
		BIBLIOGRAPHY
		Aboriginal Artists of Western Australia, [n.d.] [folios of works and biographies] , Aboriginal Education Resources Unit, Western Australia. Aboriginal Arts Management Association, 1990, Contemporary Aboriginal Art 1990 - from Australia (presented by the Aboriginal Arts Committee, Australia Council and Third Eye Centre, Glasgow), exhib. cat., Redfern, New South Wales. (C) Brody, A., Krempel, U., Bahr, E., (eds.), 1995, Stories, Eine Reise zu den grossen Dingen, exhib. cat., Landeshauptstadt Hannover Der Oberstadtdirektor Sprengel Museum Hannover and Autoren. The Bulletin, May 10, 1994, ‘An affirmation of black visual power’, review of NGA solo exhibition, p. 92 Caruana, W., 1987, Australian Aboriginal Art, a Souvenir Book of Aboriginal Art in the Australian National Gallery, Australian National Gallery, Parkes, Australian Capital Territory. (C) Caruana, W. (ed.), 1989, Windows on the Dreaming, Ellsyd Press, Sydney. (C) Caruana, W., 1993, Aboriginal Art, Thames and Hudson, London. (C) Crossman, S. and Barou, J-P. (eds), 1990, L’ete Australien a Montpellier: 100 Chefs d’Oevre de la Peinture Australienne, Musee Fabre, Montpellier, France. (C) Crumlin, R., (ed.), 1991, Aboriginal Art and Spirituality, Collins Dove, North Blackburn, Victoria. (C) Diggins, L. (ed.), 1989, A Myriad of Dreaming: Twentieth Century Aboriginal Art, exhib. cat., Malakoff Fine Art Press, North Caulfield, Victoria.
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