Design and Art Australia Online

painter, printmaker, cartoonist, photographer, poet, writer, historian and activist, was born at Condobolin, NSW, of the Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi descent via his mother, née Rachel Naden, who died when he was 7. (Gordon Briscoe called her 'Clara’ Naden and claimed that since Naden is an Afghan name she may have some Afghan heritage too, but his third wife denied this.) Completing school at fifth grade, he worked in itinerant seasonal jobs until 1957 when he was sentenced to life imprisonment after a domestic dispute in which he killed his wife (aged 23). He spent over 14 years in Bathurst, Maitland and Grafton gaols, where he educated himself and discovered his talents as an artist and writer. He wrote poems and in 1968 a play, The Cherry Pickers . In 1970 the Australia Council held an exhibition of his paintings and linocuts. He was paroled in 1971, the year his play was professionally produced. He then married Cora.

In 1972 Gilbert was employed by the Purfleet Aboriginal Cooperative at Taree to initiate community development projects. He played a leading role in the establishment of the Tent Embassy (though on parole and unable to leave Sydney for Canberra, where it was set up) and of the Kalari Aboriginal Art Gallery; he edited Alchuringa and Black Australian News and was a member of the National Aboriginal Education Committee. Becoming a powerful activist, he wrote the first major political work by an Aboriginal person, Because a White Man’ll Never Do It (1973). In 1978 his book Living Black won the National Book Council Award.

Also Chairman of the Treaty 88 campaign, etc, he was awarded an Australia Council 4-year Creative Arts fellowship in 1992 but died the following year, on 1 April 1993, having written 10 books as well as producing many paintings, prints, cartoons and photographs. He stated:

I believe if there is to be an Australian culture, it cannot be an imported culture. Cultures and people are developed from the land they occupy. Culture has to be developed from the heart, from the depths of human integrity, the depths of human passion, the depths of human creativity and I believe that if there is to be a sound overall culture for this land, it has to involve everyone and it must evolve or be based upon those finest aspects of the human family-integrity, justice, vision, creativity, life, honour…

Quoted by Reg Pollock, Assistant Director General, NSW Department of School Education in Foreword to Jumna Milla Tunth: Our Weapon/Our Shield (Penrith, NSW: Lewers Bequest and Penrith Regional Art Gallery, 1993).

Gilbert’s prints include Totality. Queensland University of Technology’s copy is from a 1960s linocut carved with tools gathered in prison-spoon, gem blades, nails-on floor linoleum from the prison workshop that was restored and printed by the artist in 1990. The National Gallery of Australia has the full set of impressions done in Long Bay Gaol in 1965-68 (acquired 1996), including the first, My Father’s Studio, 1965. The first known fine art prints by an Aboriginal artist, they were reprinted in 1990 by Canberra’s Studio One. Head of Aboriginal man , a linocut printed in 1992, was for sale at Coo-ee Aboriginal Gallery, Paddington, in February 1997. The Art Gallery New South Wales holds the linocuts Lineal legends 1965, Boothing and Murringang 1967, and Christmas Eve in the land of the dispossessed 1968, on cream cotton fabric. Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute (Adelaide) had his black and white Homeland print for sale in early 1996; My Father’s Studio , 1990 version, was acquired by ML in 1998 via Jo Holder.

Gilbert also took photographs with his third wife, the non-indigenous Eleanor Williams (exhibited by the Australian Centre for Photography for 1997 Festival of the Dreaming sponsored by SOCOG).

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007