Design and Art Australia Online

In his late sixties when he died at Hettie Perkins Home in Alice Springs in the mid ’80s, Toby Brown spent the last decade of his life living in fringe camps around Alice Springs and was an important figure in campaigns to improve their amenities. Most of his paintings seem to date from the mid to late ’70s. A commemorative mural which he painted in a simplified Western Desert style on the wall of a new amenities block won through these struggles suggests that he may have been one of the earliest 'town painters’. A member of the Anmatyerre language group, his country lay around Anumba – Wallaby Springs – on Napperby Station. His paintings depict Kangaroo, Euro, Mulga Seed, Snake and other Dreamings from this region. Collections: University of WA Anthropology Museum, Flinders University Art Museum, SA Museum, Kelton Foundation etc.

Writers:

Johnson, Vivien Note: primary biographer

Date written:

1994

Last updated:

2011