A rare Rover Thomas owl painting is the prize lot in Deutscher and Hackett’s first Australian Aboriginal art auction of the year, in a sale that also features impressive works by key artists including Emily Kame Kgnwarreye, Sally Gabori, Albert Namatjira and Ginger Riley.
Rover Thomas, the leading light of the East Kimberley art movement, is best known for his abstract renditions of country in bold, graphic, ochre paintings. It was uncommon for Thomas to paint figuratively, and one of the few subjects that he did represent in a naturalistic way is the Ancestral Owl, a central figure in Kimberley cosmology that has a connection to the Wanjina beings.
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Gabriella Coslovich is an arts journalist with more than 20 years’ experience, including 15 at The Age, where she was a senior arts writer. Her book, Whiteley on Trial, on Australia’s most audacious of alleged art fraud, won a Walkley in 2018.
