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Quentin Sprague Quentin Sprague i(8416316 works by)
Gender: Male
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1 The Paintbrush Is a Weapon Quentin Sprague , 2021 single work column
— Appears in: The Monthly , February no. 174 2021; (p. 50-52)
'Vincent Namatjira, the young Arrernte artist who calls the tiny South Australian Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara community of Indulkana home, wanted to win the Archibald Prize for almost as long as he’s identified as an artist. Many Australian artists young and old want the same: one thing that marks the Archibald – at $100,000 no longer the country’s richest painting prize, but undoubtedly the one that carries the broadest recognition – is the wide range of painters, well known or not, who throw their hat in the ring each year. But Namatjira’s desire to join the ranks of previous winners, who include William Dobell, Brett Whiteley, Nigel Milsom and Louise Hearman, was about far more than youthful ambition. In 1956, the prize had gone to William Dargie, a once-famous mid-century portraitist of prime ministers and royalty, for his oil painting of Namatjira’s great-grandfather Albert Namatjira. Albert was a painter too, of course – for a brief time in the 1950s, he was arguably the most famous in the country – and the opportunity for a Namatjira to shift from passive subject to winning artist seemed to Vincent Namatjira too perfect to pass up.' (Introduction)
1 y separately published work icon The Stranger Artist : Life at the Edge of the Kimberley Painting Quentin Sprague , South Yarra : Hardie Grant Books , 2019 19761992 2019 single work biography

'At a hinge-point in his life, artist and ex-gallerist Tony Oliver travelled to the East Kimberley, where he plunged into the crosscurrents and eddies of the Aboriginal art world. He would stay for almost a decade, working alongside a group of senior Gija artists, including acclaimed figures Paddy Bedford and Freddie Timms, to establish Jirrawun Arts, briefly one of the country’s most successful and controversial Aboriginal painting collectives.

'The Stranger Artist follows Oliver’s journey and the deep relationships he formed, an experience that forever altered his life’s trajectory. His story will draw readers close to what he came to know of Kimberley life: the immersion of culture and spirituality in the everyday, the importance of Law, the deep and abiding connection to country, and the humour and tragedy that pervade the Aboriginal world.

'Evocative and absorbing in equal measure, The Stranger Artist tells not only of the connections that can be formed through the sharing of mutual interests and experiences, but of what it takes to live between cultures.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

1 Life's Work Quentin Sprague , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: The Monthly , April no. 121 2016; (p. 16-17)
1 The Extraordinary Mrs Gabori Quentin Sprague , 2015 single work column
— Appears in: The Monthly , March no. 109 2015; (p. 32-38)
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