Ceremony; Hunting emu
(c. 1880s)
Medium
pen and black-brown ink
Measurements
25.1 × 36.2 cm (sheet)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of Amcor Limited, Fellow, 1997
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work
As a consequence of colonisation, Kwatkwat artist Tommy McRae created cross-cultural figurative drawings on paper as a means of recording a culture facing profound and irrevocable change. Spanning hunting and fishing, ceremony, battle scenes, European settlers and Chinese prospectors, McRae’s iconography reveals his sharp observations of a changing world. Unlike fellow artist William Barak (born c. 1824), McRae refused to settle at Coranderrk or the nearby Cummeragunja Reserve, preferring to maintain his independence through artmaking and working as a stockman across various stations on Wurundjeri and Yorta Yorta Country. Between 1849 and 1857, McRae worked as a drover and stockman at Brocklesby Station, the same one that would become the subject of Tom Roberts’s Shearing the rams some decades later in 1890.
Artwork Details
Accession Number
1997.415
Department
First Nations Australia
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation
Frame
Original, maker unknown.