Dorothy Bennett first came to know of Aboriginal art in 1954 when she travelled to the Northern Territory with a team of orthopedic surgeons who both helped Aboriginal communities with basic medical assistance and measured their bone structures and postures. She returned with one of the specialists, Dr Stuart Scougall, and became increasingly involved with Aboriginal communities as he worked with people at Yirrkala and other northern communities. In 1962 she left her southern connections and in Darwin founded the Bennett-Campbell non-profit Trust to sell
and promote Indigenous Australian art. By the 1970s she was well established as an advocate for Aboriginal art and artists, and at a time when most European Australians saw themselves as superior, was adamant that Aboriginal people were the most appropriate authorities on Aboriginal art. In 1978 she told Sandra McGrath, in an interview for The Australian that “Western critics can only say 'in my opinion’, because they don’t understand what is behind the work itself.”
In the 1970s, in her position as Field officer for Aboriginal Arts and Craft, she put together many touring exhibitions of bark paintings and other works from Oenpelli and Yirrkala. In 1991-2 she documented and curated the
John W Kluge collection of Oenpelli paintings.
She continued working until very shortly before her death, and in her last years was a visiting researcher at the Northern Australian
Research Unit in Darwin.
- Writers:
-
Joanna Mendelssohn
- Date written:
- 2012
- Last updated:
- 2012
