A recent find and another recently rediscovered

UPDATED POST: 10.9 13:

Just found all the images by artist E J Hauser I'd posted were missing so have deleted links I'm sorry.

EJHauser is a painter whose work I came across through Dear Ada tonight from a post on Dec 8, 09. Dear Ada consistently provides interesting leads which can be pursued in order to discover more on the artist featured. EJHauser will have a new website it looks like - it would be great to glean more of this artist's work and background.

Now for something worlds apart that I wanted to share before i forgot!


I happened to watch an ABC TV documentary on Australian artist  Elizabeth Durack just last week.  Born 1915 she lived to 2000 and spent formative years in the western Australian Kimberley landscape in a lively family with pioneering grandfather Patrick Durack immortalised in her sister Mary Durack's book 'Kings in Grass Castles'. Her sensibility was described as part australian, irish and aboriginal. Certainly her childhood was unusual for the times given the close interactions of daily life with the indigenous people who were part of their lives. She and her sister Mary wrote and illustrated books from early times together. The documentary honors the sweep of this remarkable woman's life - someone who found herself going where others didn't. Below are some works from an excellent website set up quite recently providing a glimpse of the panorama that was her life!

Mt Bagara, an active volcano, and up the road to the mine.

War and peace  1947, painted when Durack was based at Ivanhoe station , East Kimberley, WA

No images available at this time of the Eddie Burrup paintings. Please Note... the website for this artist is presently unavailable _ Sophie: noted January 2010!

John McDonald art critic for the Sydney Morning Herald wrote in 1997 that "her Eddie Burrup paintings represent an extraordinary creative leap for an artist in the twilight of her career...they sum up a lifetime's experience with Aboriginal people and have been made with consummate skill...they may yet be accepted as some of Elizabeth Durack's most important and original works".
Despite the fact she was the centre of great controversy over the identity of the Eddie Burrup works it would be a grave mistake to overlook her enormous legacy to the cultural heritage of Australia - long before it was fashionable she was challenging perceptions of this land and its people. A great overview on her website is well worth a look!