John Stanton

11/05/2019
A pastel by Reynold Hart donated to the Berndt Museum by Timothy Dauth. This is likely The Red Road which was drawn in 1950 and was purchased at the 1957 Boans exhibition organised by the W.A. Native Welfare Council (Inc.).
Author: John Stanton on 11/05/2019
Categories

Workshop Presentation Sparks Painting Gift

When I commenced the Carrolup Project back in 1985, one of its purposes was to flush out surviving drawings and paintings by the child artists of Carrolup. Media coverage in the Great Southern Herald, the Katanning newspaper, assisted in this task. When the Noongar trainees Tina Hansen and […]
Do you like it?
Read more
22/04/2019
Pastel drawing book of Edith Wallam, 28.5 x 22cm. The Myrtle K Benn Collection, 1947. Click image to see the whole front cover.
Author: John Stanton on 22/04/2019
Categories

The Pastel Drawing Books

To begin with, the child artists used whatever pencils, pastel crayons and scraps of paper that were available at the Carrolup Native Settlement School. As the enthusiasm they expressed for their art was rapidly apparent, Noel White requested better materials from the Department of Education. Government Issue pastel […]
Do you like it?
Read more
17/04/2019
A pastel drawing, 28.5 x 22cm, by Dulcie Penney from one of her government-issued schoolbooks. The Myrtle K Benn Collection, 1947.
Author: John Stanton on 17/04/2019
Categories

Did the Carrolup Girls Draw, Too? Yes!

People often ask me, ‘Did the girls at Carrolup draw, we only hear about the boys?’ There is a lot to say about this, much of it reflecting the punitive control the then Department of Native Affairs had over Aboriginal people’s lives, including those of the children. When […]
Do you like it?
Read more
10/04/2019
The frieze below the ceiling in the westernmost dormitory at Carrolup. Photographed by John Stanton (The Carrolup Story), 27th November 2018.
Author: John Stanton on 10/04/2019
Categories

The Dormitory Frieze

One of the most remarkable artefacts surviving at Carrolup/Marribank today is one element of a frieze that encircled one of the bedrooms in the westernmost of the two children’s dormitories—the left one viewed from the front of the buildings. According to Carrolup artist Parnell Dempster, the frieze comprised […]
Do you like it?
Read more
27/03/2019
Leaning tree by Milton Jackson, pastel on paper, 41 x 33cm, c.1949. Noel & Lily White Collection, Berndt Museum of Anthropology. [WU7568]
Author: John Stanton on 27/03/2019
Categories

Milton Jackson’s Long Lost Drawing

For Milton Jackson, the last surviving Carrolup child artist, attending the opening of the Colgate University crates in Katanning in 2006 (noted in an earlier posting) with his daughter Merlene Meade brought mixed emotions. His reconnection with an artwork he drew about 55 years earlier also affected all […]
Do you like it?
Read more
19/03/2019
Angus Wallam (Centre) unscrews the first crate of works from Colgate University, as Milton Jackson (Far Left) and Ezzard Flowers (Mid Right) look on. The ABC’s Message Stick program records the moment. Photograph by John Stanton, 27th February 2006. Courtesy of Berndt Museum of Anthropology, The University of Western Australia.
Author: John Stanton on 19/03/2019
Categories

Carrolup Art Arrives from Colgate University, 2006

There was great excitement in the Katanning Gallery as preparations were made to unscrew the lid of the first of several crates flown out from Colgate University, Hamilton, New York State, for the Perth International Arts Festival exhibition, Koorah Coolingah: Children Long Ago. The crates had sat acclimatising […]
Do you like it?
Read more
06/03/2019
Pre-decimal Australian bank notes, Melbourne Mint, 1949.
Author: John Stanton on 06/03/2019
Categories

Were the Children Paid for their Art?

I’m afraid the answer to this question is ‘No’! The child artists were minors at the time, as well as Wards of the State, so they couldn’t receive any money until they turned 21, the age of majority at that time. The funds earned from sales of their […]
Do you like it?
Read more
13/02/2019
An element of the exhibition depicting ceremony and dance, in the Janet Holmes à Court Gallery, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery. Photographer: John Stanton, 12th February 2019.
Author: John Stanton on 13/02/2019
Categories

Berndt Museum Exhibition ‘Carrolup Revisited’ Opens

The 8th of February saw the formal opening of the Berndt Museum’s new exhibition, Carrolup Revisited, at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, The University of Western Australia, which will last until the 29th of June. It was an emotional occasion for families of the child artists present, and […]
Do you like it?
Read more
01/02/2019
Doris Flatt, one of Florence Rutter's daughters, during her interview with John Stanton at her home in Williton, Somerset, UK, in 2006.
Author: John Stanton on 01/02/2019
Categories

Interview With Doris Flatt: Part 2

Doris Flatt was one of daughters of Florence Rutter, the self-appointed ‘ambassador’ to the Carrolup child artists. Over 100 years old at the time of the interview, Doris had strong memories of her mother’s great enthusiasm for their art, as she was determined to bring it to the […]
Do you like it?
Read more
23/01/2019
Parnell Dempster's Down to Drink adorns a wall at the 45th Annual Exhibition of the Pastel Society in London, 1951. Mrs Rutter proudly discusses the drawing with Mr and Mrs Richter. Mary Durack Miller Collection, J. S. Battye Library of West Australian History, 1951.
Author: John Stanton on 23/01/2019
Categories

Interview With Doris Flatt: Part 1

Doris Flatt was one of the daughters of the 71-year old Englishwoman Florence Rutter, the self-appointed ‘ambassador’ to the Carrolup child artists. Over 100 years old at the time of this interview (May 2006), Doris had strong memories of her mother discussing the Carrolup artworks with great and […]
Do you like it?
Read more
17/01/2019
Trainees Tina Hansen (left) and Cora Farmer (right) videotape one of the early examples of Carrolup children's art held in the Berndt Museum for a film that was being made by John Stanton for the Marribank Community. Uniview, The University of Western Australia, 5/4, pp. 1-2, July 1986.
Author: John Stanton on 17/01/2019
Categories

Noongar Trainees: Marribank Cultural Centre Project

Yesterday, David wrote a blog about my 40 year involvement with Carrolup. He described the collaboration between the Marribank Family Centre and the Berndt Museum of Anthropology (of which I was Director), The Carrolup Project, that received generous funding from the Australian Bicentennial Authority. Today, I focus on another […]
Do you like it?
Read more
11/01/2019
Imagined corroboree by Reynold Hart, watercolour and ink on paper, 25 x 30cm, c.1948. Stan, Melvie and Gael Phillips Collection, 1947 - 65, Berndt Museum of Anthropology. [WU7255]
Author: John Stanton on 11/01/2019
Categories

The Corroboree Artworks

A previous blog highlighted the child artists’ fascination with the liminality of dusk, the period between day and night. The night was also a time for ceremony. This is depicted most evocatively in, for example, Reynold Hart’s ‘Dancing Figures’, or his deceptively titled ‘Imagined Corroboree’—deceptive, in that this was […]
Do you like it?
Read more
08/01/2019
Hunters by Revel Cooper, pastel on paper, 29 x 38cm, c.1948. Stan, Melvie and Gael Phillips Collection, 1947 – 65, Berndt Museum of Anthropology. [WU7304]
Author: John Stanton on 08/01/2019
Categories

The Liminality of Dusk

The Carrolup child artists appear to have been particularly fascinated with the liminality of dusk. That is, the period between day and night when the light gradually fades to become night; when the breeze settles and becomes stillness personified, and when colours become simply black and white. When […]
Do you like it?
Read more
12/12/2018
Down to Drink by Parnell Dempster, pastel on paper, 58.6 x 76.4cm, 1949. The Herbert Mayer Collection of Carrolup Artwork, John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University.
Author: John Stanton on 12/12/2018
Categories

Guests See ‘Koorah Coolingah’, Katanning Art Gallery, 2006

Following the Official Opening at the ‘Koorah Coolingah: Children Long Ago’ exhibition at Katanning on 24th February 2006, members of the community, and the wider public, were allowed into the Katanning Art Gallery for the first time. Many had wanted to come in earlier in the week when we […]
Do you like it?
Read more
10/12/2018
Ezzard Flowers speaking at the Official Opening of Koorah Coolingah exhibition, Katanning, with MC Norelle Jacobs in the background, 24th February 2006. Berndt Museum of Anthropology, The University of Western Australia.
Author: John Stanton on 10/12/2018
Categories

Ezzard Flowers Speaking at the Official Opening of ‘Koorah Coolingah’

Ezzard Flowers, who travelled to Colgate University in America with Athol Farmer and John Stanton, reminds us of the impact of the return to the South-West of some of the ‘lost’ collection of Carrolup children’s art on Noongar culture. It was, indeed, an emotional occasion. Indeed, the event was […]
Do you like it?
Read more
09/12/2018
John Stanton (Berndt Museum) [Left Front] with Howard Morphy (Australian National University), who discovered the ‘lost’ works at Colgate University, watch the Official Opening of the ‘Koorah Coolingah’ exhibition at Katanning Art Gallery, 24th February 2006. Berndt Museum of Anthropology, The University of Western Australia.
Author: John Stanton on 09/12/2018
Categories

Homecoming of Carrolup Artworks, 2006

Colgate University in up-state New York seemed a very long way, and a very long time ago, as Howard and I watched the Opening Ceremony at Katanning, a welcome homecoming to the 20 artworks that had been loaned by the Picker Gallery to the Perth International Arts Festival […]
Do you like it?
Read more
07/12/2018
The children's dormitories at Carrolup today. Photograph taken by John Stanton on 26th November 2018.
Author: John Stanton on 07/12/2018
Categories

Institutionalisation of the Carrolup children

In recent blog posting, David revealed the memories of Carrolup artist Revel Cooper about life on Carrolup in the first half of 1940s, when the children were ‘running wild’. In his most recent posting, he described Revel’s memories of the time when Mrs Elliot was teacher between 1945 […]
Do you like it?
Read more
02/12/2018
The Golden Road by an unidentified child artist from Carrolup, c1949. The image is from the Colgate University Flickr account described below. The drawing is part of the The Herbert Mayer Collection of Carrolup Artwork, John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University.
Author: John Stanton on 02/12/2018
Categories

The ‘Lost’ Florence Rutter Carrolup Collection

We’ve been thrilled with the response we’ve had from community members about The Carrolup Story website, and their delight in looking again at a selection of the Carrolup children’s art we have shown. However, we’ve just realised that we haven’t let everybody know that a number of works […]
Do you like it?
Read more
123
Translate »