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Essays

An Art without Precedent A text by Judith Ryan on Sally Gabori

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In 2022, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain organized the first solo exhibition of Aboriginal artist Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori (1924–2015) outside of her native Australia. In the exhibition catalog, Australian art historian Judith Ryan presented the work of this artist who began painting in 2005 at the age of 80. Seemingly abstract, the huge canvases of Sally Gabori refer to her native island landscapes and the founding stories of her community, the Kaiadilt. This text traces the story of Sally Gabori and analyzes the unique and colorful work of this extraordinary painter who stands among the greatest Australian artists of the early 21st century. Judith Ryan also put her work into perspective with that of other Aboriginal women artists, contemporaries of Sally Gabori: Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910–96), Yulyurlu Lorna Napurrurla Fencer (c. 1925–2006), Wingu Tingima (c. 1925–2010), and Nyapanyapa Yunupiŋu (c. 1945–2021).

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Editor Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris
Languages Bilingual French / English version
Format

Paperback, 17 × 10.5 cm, 76 pages
non-illustrated

Design Nolwen Lauzanne
ISBN 9782869252103
Release October 2025

Judith Ryan

Judith Ryan is an Australian art historian, specialized in Indigenous Art from the 20th and 21st century. She received a BA Honours in Fine Arts and English Literature at the University of Melbourne in 1970 and a Certificate in Education at Oxford University in 1972. In 1977, she joined the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne, where she was Senior Curator of Indigenous Art on her retirement in 2021. She contributed to initiating and advancing the NGV’s Indigenous Art Collection from 1987 onwards. She has curated over 50 exhibitions, focused on increasing the visibility of Indigenous art. In 2016, she curated the NGV’s retrospective on Sally Gabori’s work, Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori: Dulka Warngiid—Land of All as well as Who’s Afraid of Colour?. She worked in 2021–22 as a curatorial advisor to the exhibition 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art presented at the University of Melbourne, then at the Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, in 2025. Judith Ryan is the author of books in the field, including Images of Power: Aboriginal Art of the Kimberley (1993); Color Power: Aboriginal Art Post 1984 (2004); and Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art (2011), all published by the NGV.

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