Paddy Bedford Paintings & Artwork for Sale | Paddy Bedford Art Value Price Guide

May. 28, 2026
Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford, Untitled, 2006
Est: $10,000 - $15,000
Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford (c.1922 - 2007) Untitled, 2006 gouache on crescent board 50.0 x 76.0 cm 78.5 x 102.0 cm (frame) bears inscription verso: Jirrawun Aboriginal Arts cat. PB WB 3 2006-267 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 2007 LITERATURE Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 182 (illus.) © courtesy of The Estate of Paddy Bedford This work is located in our Melbourne Gallery
Deutscher and Hackett
May. 19, 2026
PADDY BEDFORD NYUNKUNY, Motor Car Yard, 1999
Est: $70,000 - $100,000
PADDY BEDFORD NYUNKUNY 1922 - 2007 Motor Car Yard, 1999 ochre on linen 122 x 135 cm; 124 x 137 cm (framed) signed verso 'PB'; Motor Car Yard, 1999, Jirrawun Aboriginal Art Corporation PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Western Australia William Mora Galleries, Victoria Private Collection, Western Australia ILLUSTRATED Linda Michael (ed.), Paddy Bedford, Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2006, p. 146 Reverence 2023, D'Lan Contemporary, Melbourne, p.58 EXHIBITED Reverence 2023, 27 October - 1 December 2023, D'Lan Contemporary, Melbourne, Vic Paddy Bedford (Nyunkuny) was born in 1922 at Ngarrmaliny on Bedford Downs cattle station in the East Kimberley and grew up leading an active ceremonial life while working as a stockman on Old Bedford, Old Greenvale, and Bow River cattle stations. Painted in 1999, Motor Car Yard is an early and highly significant example of Paddy Bedford's distinctive vision of East Kimberley country. Among the most important Indigenous Australian artists of his generation, Bedford emerged late in life yet rapidly achieved critical acclaim for works that transformed the traditions established by Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji. Works from this formative period are especially sought after for their raw innovation, capturing the moment Bedford first developed his visual language. Bedford joined Freddie Timms as a founding member of the Jirrawun Arts collective in 1998. In 2006, Paddy Bedford was selected as one of eight First Nations artists to contribute designs for the buildings of the Musée du quai Branly, Paris. Later that year he was honoured with a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
Art Leven (formerly Cooee Art)
Mar. 25, 2026
Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford, Queensland creek, 1998
Est: $80,000 - $120,000
Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford (c.1922 - 2007) Queensland creek, 1998 ochres and natural earth pigment with synthetic binder on Belgian linen 122.0 x 134.0 cm signed with initials verso: PB bears inscription verso: artist's name, title, date and Jirrawun Arts cat. P.B.98.22 and cat. AM755/03 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia William Mora Galleries, Melbourne (stamped verso) Ray Foley, Tasmania Art Mob, Tasmania Grant Smith, Melbourne D’lan Contemporary, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection, Brisbane, acquired from the above in 2022 EXHIBITED Paddy Bedford: My Country, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne, 18 November – 12 December 1998 Reverence, D’lan Contemporary, Melbourne, 28 October – 3 December 2022 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 84) LITERATURE Michael, L. (ed.), Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, pp. 144 (illus.) ESSAY A fundamental purpose of the paintings of Paddy Bedford was to transmit knowledge of the features, geography and sacred narratives connected to his Country. His works also recount the more everyday experiences of life on cattle stations in the Kimberley. As one commentator notes, they are ‘drawn from the artist’s two very different sources of knowledge: historical events and the Ngarranggarni, the parallel time-dimension in which all things were created and the laws of human behaviour were laid down.’1 These dual sources underpin an evolving repertoire of designs and motifs. Bedford frequently revisited particular themes and subjects, returning repeatedly to the stories entrusted to him by his family. His paintings can be understood as variations on a theme – an approach Tony Oliver compares to that of a jazz musician: ‘The artist revisits the same themes in his paintings, creating new arrangements, but their underlying narrative does not alter.’2 Located north-east of Bedford Downs, the site of Queensland Creek lies adjacent to the Wilson River. The area is characterised by creeks and watercourses traversing open country, with the Durack Range rising to the east and an enclosed escarpment to the south-west. It was from the topographical features and cultural significance of this landscape that Bedford drew profound inspiration. This striking early canvas, produced in 1998 – his first year of painting – and executed in a characteristic Kimberley ochre palette, reveals the artist’s initial exploration of the tension between graphic form and the rectangular edge of the canvas, a dynamic developed more fully in later works. Here, Bedford positions the principal motifs close to the corners and edges of the frame, evoking a compelling interplay of presence and absence, density and space. Inspired by rocks and other amorphous forms in the Kimberley landscape, he creates a symbiosis between bold, powerful shapes and a carefully balanced composition. Dominant forms in red and black ochre anchor the corners, while the open spaces between them are lightly infilled with yellow ochre pigment, producing a surface that emanates a soft, resonant luminosity. 1. Petitjean, G., Paddy Bedford – Crossing Frontiers, AAMU, Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Utrecht, 2010, p. 35 2. Oliver, T., et al., Rhapsodies in Country, Grant Pirrie, Sydney, 2002, unpaginated CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE © courtesy of The Estate of Paddy Bedford
Deutscher and Hackett
Mar. 25, 2026
Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford, Biriyalji – Fish Hole, 1999
Est: $100,000 - $140,000
Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford (c.1922 - 2007) Biriyalji – Fish Hole, 1999 natural earth pigments and synthetic binder on Belgian linen 122.5 x 134.5 cm signed with initials verso: PB bears inscription verso: title and date PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia (cat. PB 5 1999–41) Framed Gallery, Darwin Private collection, Canberra, acquired from the above in July 2001 EXHIBITED Crocodile Hole: Paddy Bedford, Freddie Timms, Phylis Thomas and Goody Barrett, Framed Gallery, Darwin, 1 – 18 September 2000 (illus. on gallery invitation) LITERATURE Michael, L. (ed.), Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 145 (illus. as ‘Red Bucket (Red Pocket) [sic] 1999, PB 5 1999.41’) ESSAY ‘Paddy Bedford’s paintings articulate a complex dialectic between modern materials and traditional pictorial conventions, contemporary experience and ancient belief systems.’1 Drawing upon two distinct sources of knowledge, and painting with a profound sense of history and cultural responsibility, Bedford mapped the rich narratives of the East Kimberley through stories from his father’s, mother’s and uncle’s Country. Within his canvases, historical events and everyday accounts of life on cattle stations coexist with a lyrical and deeply informed understanding of the land and its creation stories. While recounting significant episodes from the region’s past, Bedford simultaneously painted the ‘bones’ of the landscape – its waterholes, stockyards and roads – tracing the sites he traversed throughout his life. ‘Fish Hole’, known to the local Gija people as Biriyalji (or Piriyalji), is one of two waterholes of that name depicted by the artist. Located a few kilometres south of the Springvale-Lansdowne Road, south-west of Bedford Downs Station on the Little Gold River in his mother’s Country, it is the Dreaming place of Biriyalji, the konkerberry ( Carissa lanceolata) – a small, edible black fruit that ripens in the wet season and is also valued for its medicinal properties. Painted in 1999, the second year of Bedford’s painting career, Biriyalji – Fish Hole, 1999 marks a significant evolution in his style. Moving beyond the familiar ochre-based representations of Country associated with earlier East Kimberley artists, he adopts a stark black-and-white palette. Dense monochromatic fields of black are pressed against the edges and corners of the canvas, while painterly passages of white flow between them. The composition evokes a compelling interplay of presence and absence, space and emptiness. As Michiel Dolk observes, this approach suggests an ‘acceptance of absence, of emptiness as a positive term, and is also an assertion of the material presence of painting as a surface and object.’2 Bedford’s early exploration of a monochromatic palette here heightens the tension between positive and negative space, foreground and background, through strong vertical and horizontal divisions within the composition. In doing so, it anticipates the further innovations in palette and technique that would come to define his mature practice. 1. Michael Dolk, cited in Storer, R., ‘Paddy Bedford’ in Michael, L., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 11 2. ibid., p. 39 CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE © courtesy of The Estate of Paddy Bedford
Deutscher and Hackett
Mar. 25, 2026
Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford, Fig tree hole, 2005
Est: $150,000 - $200,000
Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford (c.1922 - 2007) Fig tree hole, 2005 ochres and pigments with synthetic binder on linen 150.0 x 180.0 cm signed with initials verso: PB bears inscription verso: date and Jirrawun Arts cat. PB 8 2005.235 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Wyndham, Western Australia Gene and Brian Sherman collection, Sydney Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 25 May 2016, lot 21 Private collection, Indonesia LITERATURE Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art,Sydney, 2006, p. 158 (illus.) ESSAY Paddy Bedford played a pivotal role in what can rightly be described as an aesthetic revolution in contemporary Indigenous art. A leading figure among a group of artists from Warmun in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, Bedford was often referred to as the ‘new’ Rover Thomas, and significantly, only began painting on canvas after fellow artist Freddie Timms established the Jirrawun Aboriginal Art group at Rugun (Crocodile Hole) in north-east Western Australia in 1997. Catalogued as PB 8–2005.235 in Bedford’s chronological index, this painting on linen was executed in 2005 and depicts the country of Jamelayigoon (Fig Tree Hole). An archetypal example of Bedford’s practice, the work features dramatic monochromatic contrasts with subtle suggestions of figuration. His pared-back, minimalist approach – combined with wet-on-wet techniques and expressive gestural mark-making – propelled his work into a distinctly contemporary arena. At the same time, as a senior lawman, Bedford recorded the history of his country and the narratives of three major sites for which he was custodian: Emu Dreaming, Bush Turkey Dreaming and Cockatoo Dreaming. Jamelayigoon (Fig Tree Hole) lies north-east of Bedford Downs and further north of Lerdijwaneman (Lightning Creek). The site is characterised by a river running between high cliffs, with a large cave set into the rock face. It is the Dreaming place of Woonyjoorroony (the Rock Wallaby), and the river’s waterholes are associated with Birlinji (the red river gum). The area is closely connected to Bedford’s father, who was born nearby at Wirndoowoon. Bedford’s personal Dreaming of Minjiwarrany (black plum), inherited from his father, is also linked to this place. Stylistically, this painting marks Bedford’s departure from the more familiar conventions of earlier East Kimberley painters, as he forged a highly personal vision of country. The introduction of a stark black-and-white ground signals his evolution from a purely ochre palette. Solid forms assert themselves within the composition, while washes of soft pink and blue-grey temper the surface through a wet-on-wet process first seen in his canvases in 2003. By suspending white and coloured pigments in an acrylic medium, Bedford achieved a distinctive luminosity and depth across the painted surface. During his lifetime, Bedford received numerous honours. His work was exhibited widely in major museums in Australia and internationally, including a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, in 2006. That same year, he was notably also included among a select group of artists commissioned to produce a major work for the collection of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. © courtesy of The Estate of Paddy Bedford
Deutscher and Hackett
Aug. 27, 2025
Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford, Winperrji - Police rock hole, 2004
Est: $50,000 - $70,000
Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford (c.1922 - 2007) Winperrji - Police rock hole, 2004 natural earth pigments and synthetic binder on board 80.0 x 100.0 cm signed with initials verso: PB bears inscription verso: Jirrawun Arts cat. PB CB 3, 2004-22 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia Laverty collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 2004 LITERATURE Michael, L. (ed.), Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 161 (illus.) Beyond Sacred: Australian Aboriginal Art - The collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Edition II, Kleimeyer Industries, Melbourne, 2011, p. 250 (illus.) ESSAY Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford painted with a deep sense of cultural responsibility, with the professional practice of this respected senior Gija artist and lawman focused upon stories from the countries of his mother, father, and uncle. He was major custodian of three significant sites – Garnanganyjen (Emu), Birnkirrbal (Bush Turkey) and Ngayilanji (White Cockatoo) – and his idiosyncratic depictions of these sites bestows a visual representation of Indigenous cultural memory that contributes to a growing body of work promoting the decolonisation of Australian history. Catalogued as painting PB CB 3-2004.22 in Bedford's chronological index of works, this painting on custom board was executed in 2004, and represents the country of Winperrji (Police Rock Hole). Also known as Police Camp, this site is found between Warmun and Bedford Downs in his mother's country, approximately 15 kilometers to the west of Bedford Downs homestead. Located on foal creek, and home to a large deep permanent waterhole, it is the dreaming place of Jarlangarnany (the plains kangaroo), and an important camping site for the Gija prior to European settlement. Winperrji was also used as a camping spot for police in the early twentieth century when travelling between Halls Creek and the Port of Wyndham. Winperrji – Police rock hole, 2004 exemplifies Bedford's move away from the more familiar style of the earlier east Kimberley painters to create his own representations of country. With the introduction of a contrasting black and white ground, his use of colour has evolved from a purely ochre palette. The composition often includes the intrusion of solid forms of varied colour and the surface may be softened by washes of pink or blue grey in a wet-on-wet process that first appeared on his canvases in 2003, with the artist employing a mixture of white and coloured pigment suspended in an acrylic medium to add a unique depth to the painting surface. From the time Bedford first painted in 1998, his stories on board and canvas were executed with an authority and confidence that reflected his importance as a traditional elder, embodying the eternal presence of the Dreaming or Ngarranggarni in his native Gija language. Steeped in traditional lore, he drew on a seemingly endless source of knowledge related to significant sites. His paintings of these sites – combined with the physical experience of mountain ranges, rivers, roads, bridges and country traversed while mustering and living typical station life – unite as a record of memories, of place, landscape and personal experiences that correspond with stories of the Ngarranggarrni. The importance of painting for Paddy Bedford was multi-layered – an expression of country and cultural memory, as well as a claim to identity and consequently an assertion of ownership to the land itself. As Michael Dolk notes, his painting suggests a physical and tactile relation to land: ‘To behold painting is to hold country and to remain beholden to its ancestral tradition.’1 1. Dolk, M., ‘Are We Strangers in this Place?’, in Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 20 CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE © courtesy of The Estate of Paddy Bedford
Deutscher and Hackett
Aug. 26, 2025
Paddy Bedford (circa 1922-2007) Untitled, 2006
Est: $8,000 - $12,000
Paddy Bedford (circa 1922-2007) Untitled, 2006 inscribed with Jirrawun Arts cat. verso: 'PB WB 3 2006-272' (transcribed to frame) gouache on crescent board 51.0 x 76.0cm (20 1/16 x 29 15/16in).
Bonhams
May. 04, 2025
Paddy Bedford, Published by the Museum of Contemporary Art (2007)
Est: $40 - $80
Paddy Bedford, Published by the Museum of Contemporary Art (2007), soft cover
Theodore Bruce Auctioneers & Valuers
Mar. 26, 2025
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, DINGO DREAMING, 2001
Est: $100,000 - $140,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD (c.1922 - 2007) DINGO DREAMING, 2001 natural earth pigments and synthetic binder on Belgian linen 122.0 x 135.0 cm signed with initials verso: PB bears inscription verso: artist’s name, title and Jirrawun Arts cat. PB 8 2001-114 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia RAFT Artspace, Alice Springs, Northern Territory Private collection GRANTPIRRIE Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 2007 A Secondary Eye, Brisbane Private collection, Brisbane, acquired from the above in 2022 EXHIBITED Goowoomji Paddy Bedford, RAFT Artspace, Alice Springs, Northern Territory, October 2001 Country & Western: Landscape Re-imagined 1988 - 2013, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, 24 July - 20 September 2015, and touring to: S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 30 October – 6 December 2015, Blue Mountains City Art Gallery, New South Wales, 8 January – 6 March 2016, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, New South Wales, 19 March – 8 May 2016; Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria, 13 May – 3 July 2016; Orange Regional Gallery, New South Wales, 8 July – 28 August, 2016; Cairns Regional Gallery, Queensland, 16 September – 13 November 2016; and Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, 26 November – 19 March 2017 A Secondary Eye at Sydney Contemporary 2022, Carriageworks, Sydney, 8 – 11 September 2022 Paddy Bedford: Spirit & Truth, D’Lan Contemporary, Frieze Masters, London, 9 – 13 October 2024 LITERATURE Michael, L. (ed.), Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 150 (illus.) Wilson, G., Country & Western: Landscape Re-imagined, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, 2015, p. 57 (illus.) ESSAY Crafting his own unique representations of country, the paintings of Paddy Bedford evoke rocky escarpments, rivers and other amorphous features of the Kimberley landscape, whilst at the same time containing a learned and poetical knowledge of the land and its creation stories. His formal language is characterised by a symbiotic relationship between bold forms and an elegant, balanced composition. While Bedford’s early paintings engaged the use of natural ochres to depict his environment, his later works employed a more restrained and pared-back palette, initially using only black and white, but later incorporating yellow, grey and pink washes, applied to the canvas before the previously administered layer of paint had dried, a process known as ‘wet on wet’. Known as Goowoomji-Nyunkuny in his Gija language, Paddy Bedford is recognized as one of the most important Indigenous Australian artists. Painting his first works on discarded building materials in 1998, aged 75, he soon became noticed as an innovator and influential artist through his unique depictions of East Kimberley indigenous history which evolve the artistic tradition forged earlier by Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji. Born and raised on Bedford Station where he worked for rations as a stockman, Bedford also spent time on Greenvale and Bow River Stations before returning to his place of birth. As with most Aboriginal people in the eastern Kimberley, Bedford continued traditional practices and ceremony which provided the opportunities for him to paint. His first paintings in the public domain were made when he joined the Jirrawun group of artists established by Freddie Timms at Rugun (Crocodile Hole) in 1997, becoming one of the senior artists of the group. Dingo Dreaming, 2001 relates to an episode from the dreaming or Ngarranggarni in Gija language that took place at the site of Garndiwarl, located to the south-west of Bedford Downs on a part of what is now Lansdown Station – the birthplace of the artist’s mother and one of the dreaming sites of the ancestral dingo marranyi who travelled though this country when he was a man in the ancient times before being turned into a rock at the site of Gernawarliyan, (also known as Camel Gap). Notably, the name of this place is taken from a type of tree used to make spear throwers or woomeras known as the bats-wing coral tree or Garndiwarl (Erythrina verspertillo). Bedford painted with a deep sense of cultural responsibility. Throughout much of his professional practice this respected senior Gija artist and lawman painted stories from the countries of his mother, father, and uncle. He was major custodian of three significant sites – Emu Dreaming, Bush Turkey Dreaming and Cockatoo Dreaming – and his idiosyncratic depictions of these bestows a visual re-presentation of Indigenous cultural memory that contributes to a growing body of work promoting the decolonisation of Australian history. CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE © courtesy of The Estate of Paddy Bedford
Deutscher and Hackett
Dec. 07, 2024
BEDFORD Paddy (Aboriginal 1922-2007), 'Win Bil Ji - Old Bedford Station,' 2001., Natural Earth Pigments on Canvas, 128x92cm
Est: $10,000 - $20,000
BEDFORD, Paddy (Aboriginal 1922-2007) 'Win Bil Ji - Old Bedford Station,' 2001. Work in progress images. Natural Earth Pigments on Canvas 128x92cm PROVENANCE: Neil McLeod Fine Arts Studio, Victoria (cat #NM4003); Art Mob, Tasmania, cat #AM1102/03 (certificate of authenticity included); private collection, NSW.
Davidson Auctions
Nov. 12, 2024
PADDY BEDFORD NYUNKUNY, UNTITLED, 2003
Est: $10,000 - $12,000
PADDY BEDFORD NYUNKUNY 1922-2007 UNTITLED, 2003 gouache and blue chalk on crescent board 50.5 x 76.5 cm; 78.5 x 102 cm (framed) signed verso PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, WA Cat No. PB WB 2003-84 Private Collection, Qld Deutscher & Hackett, December 2015, Sydney, NSW, Lot 109 Private Collection, WA EXHIBITED Eaux Vivantes, Living Waters, Musée océanographique de Monaco, 23 March - 30 September 2016 ©Paddy Bedford Nyunkuny / Copyright Agency, 2024 Paddy Bedford began his artistic journey later in life, shaped by his deep connection to his Gija heritage. Born around 1922 at Bedford Downs Station in the East Kimberley, he spent many years as a stockman, trading his labour for basic provisions. Throughout his life, he engaged in ceremonial painting, but it wasn't until the mid-1990s that his talent was discovered by chance when a gallery dealer found some discarded boards. In 1997, Bedford formally embraced painting with the establishment of Jirrawun Aboriginal Arts. Over the next decade, his style transformed from simple, flat ochre to rich, textured surfaces filled with luminosity. As his health and dexterity evolved, so did his choice of medium; after 2000, he began working with gouache on paper, creating intimate pieces that were just as impactful as his earlier canvas works. His paintings, whether on paper or canvas, exhibit a distinctive and authoritative language, deeply rooted in East Kimberley traditions. Bedford's exceptional talent garnered significant attention, leading to his selection for the permanent installation at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. In 2007, he received a retrospective exhibition and major catalogue from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney—an unprecedented honour during his lifetime. This exhibition toured nationally and coincided with the year of his passing, encapsulating the extraordinary legacy of his late-emerging career. This piece is a fine example of an Australian Aboriginal artwork.
Art Leven (formerly Cooee Art)
Aug. 21, 2024
§ PADDY BEDFORD circa 1922-2007 Police Rock Hole (2002) natural ochre pigments and synthetic polymer paint on binder on canvas 122 x 13
Est: $60,000 - $80,000
§ PADDY BEDFORD circa 1922-2007 Police Rock Hole (2002) natural ochre pigments and synthetic polymer paint on binder on canvas 122 x 135 cm PROVENANCE Jirrawun Aboriginal Community, Kimberley (PB 8 2002.137) (verso) Grantpirrie, Sydney Private Collection, Vancouver Modern and Contemporary Australian and South African Art, Christie's, London, 16 December 2008, lot 78, illustrated Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above Private Collection, Sydney Japinka Gallery, Perth Private Collection, Adelaide, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Paddy Bedford: Significant Paintings, Grantpirrie, Sydney, 6-30 November 2002, no. 14 (Probably) True Stories: Art of the East Kimberley, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 11 January – 27 April 2003 LITERATURE Georges Petitjean, Paddy Bedford: Significant Paintings, Grantpirrie, Sydney, 2002, n.p. (Illustrated) Russell Storer, Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, pp. 93 (illustrated), 152 (illustrated)
Smith & Singer
Aug. 21, 2024
PADDY BEDFORD circa 1922-2007 Girrganyji The Brown Falcon Dreaming (2000) natural ochre pigments and synthetic polymer paint on binder
Est: $100,000 - $150,000
PADDY BEDFORD circa 1922-2007 Girrganyji The Brown Falcon Dreaming (2000) natural ochre pigments and synthetic polymer paint on binder on canvas 180 x 150 cm PROVENANCE Jirrawun Aboriginal Community, Kimberley (PB 3 2000.75) (verso) Chapman Gallery, Canberra Private Collection, Canberra Private Collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Paddy Bedford, Chapman Gallery, Canberra, 2-30 July 2000, no. 1 LITERATURE Russell Storer, Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2007, p. 148 (illustrated)
Smith & Singer
Mar. 26, 2024
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, UNTITLED, 2004
Est: $10,000 - $15,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD (c.1922 - 2007) UNTITLED, 2004 gouache on crescent board 50.5 x 76.0 cm bears inscription verso: Jirrawun Aboriginal Arts cat. PB WB 3 2004.181 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia The Estate of Paddy Bedford William Mora Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 18 May 2011, lot 42 Private collection, Melbourne LITERATURE Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 176 (illus.) © courtesy of The Estate of Paddy Bedford
Deutscher and Hackett
Mar. 26, 2024
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, UNTITLED, 2004
Est: $8,000 - $12,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD (c.1922 - 2007) UNTITLED, 2004 gouache on crescent board 50.5 x 76.0 cm bears inscription verso: Jirrawun Aboriginal Arts cat. PB WB 3 2004.198 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia The Estate of Paddy Bedford William Mora Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 18 May 2011, lot 41 Private collection, Melbourne LITERATURE Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 177 (illus.) © courtesy of The Estate of Paddy Bedford
Deutscher and Hackett
Nov. 22, 2023
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, UNTITLED, 2003
Est: $12,000 - $15,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD (c.1922 - 2007) UNTITLED, 2003 gouache on crescent board 51.0 x 76.5 cm bears a written dedication to the recipient verso, dictated by Paddy Bedford and transcribed by Tony Olivero: ‘To my friends Peter and Karen, thank you, lawyer that a true story – everything. Gardia damage them at Bedford Downs. Proove it now No matter gardia don’t believe. Paddy Quilty got wild over bullock – but other gardia wanted those blackfella women. My mum carrying me when bad thing happen with cheeky gardia. Paddy Quilty give me his name – “We’ll have to call him after me – ‘Paddy Bedford’.’ That Trevor Smith and Jack Carey they cheeky gardia – Carey bad man cut women’s milk and miller (vagina) – BAD PEOPLE – Murders – cut man’s prick as well. Thank you, from Lawman Paddy – I know everything law way. I got olden time law that old people show us. Paddy Bedford, October 2003, Kununurra Paddy Bedford gouache on crescent board September 2003 Jirrawun Arts Kununurra, WA' PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia Paddy Bedford, Kununurra Private collection, Melbourne, a gift from the above © courtesy of The Estate of Paddy Bedford
Deutscher and Hackett
Aug. 29, 2023
Paddy Bedford (circa 1922-2007) Untitled, 2003
Est: $12,000 - $18,000
Paddy Bedford (circa 1922-2007) Untitled, 2003 bears inscription verso: Jirrawun Arts cat. 'PB WB 2003-30 PB' gouache on crescent board 82.0 x 101.0cm (32 5/16 x 39 3/4in).
Bonhams
Jun. 20, 2023
Paddy Bedford - Krill Krill (Dance Board), 2001
Est: $8,000 - $12,000
Though he had been involved with ceremonial painting all his life, Paddy Bedford did not begin painting formally until he was in his late 70s in 1997. While important Dreamings such as the Emu, Turkey, and Cockatoo are present in many of his works, this board, made for Junba, depicts Lungabun (Jack Humble Bore on Bedford Downs). Junba, referred to as a corroboree or bungl in other parts of Australia, is considered essential for social and emotional wellbeing, and handing down culture and language. Paddy was an enigmatic octogenarian, who stood out as a uniquely talented artist. He was amongst the few selected to contribute to the permanent installation at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris and was honoured, during his lifetime, with a retrospective exhibition and a major monograph by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, which toured nationally.
Art Leven (formerly Cooee Art)
May. 23, 2023
Mud Springs - Yuwangeny
Est: $70,000 - $100,000
Paddy Bedford 1922-2007 Mud Springs - Yuwangeny, 2002 Signed ‘PB’ and bears artist’s name and Jirrawan Arts catalogue number PB862002-124 on the reverse Natural earth pigments on Belgian linen 59 in x 70 ⅞ in (150 cm x 180 cm)
Sotheby's
Mar. 22, 2023
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, UNTITLED, 2004
Est: $8,000 - $12,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD (c.1922 - 2007) UNTITLED, 2004 gouache on crescent board 51.0 x 76.0 cm bears inscription verso: Jirrawun Arts cat. PB-WB-3-2004–188 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia The Laverty Collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in April 2004 EXHIBITED Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 6 December 2006 – 15 April 2007, then touring Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 12 May – 22 July 2007; Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 11 August – 16 September 2007; University Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 16 November 2007 – 1 March 2008 LITERATURE Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 177 (illus.) Beyond Sacred: Australian Aboriginal Art: The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, edition II, Kleimeyer Industries Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 2011, p. 249 (illus.) © courtesy of The Estate of Paddy Bedford
Deutscher and Hackett
Mar. 22, 2023
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, UNTITLED, 2004
Est: $8,000 - $12,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD (c.1922 - 2007) UNTITLED, 2004 gouache on crescent board 51.0 x 76.0 cm bears inscription verso: Jirrawun Arts cat. PB WB 2004–186 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia The Laverty Collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in April 2004 EXHIBITED Talking About Abstraction, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney, 27 May – 3 July 2004 LITERATURE Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 177 (illus.) © courtesy of The Estate of Paddy Bedford
Deutscher and Hackett
Dec. 01, 2022
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, CAMEL GAP, 2004
Est: $45,000 - $65,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD (c.1922 - 2007) CAMEL GAP, 2004 ochres and pigments with synthetic binder on composition board 80.5 x 100.5 cm signed with initials verso: PB bears inscription verso: Jirrawun Arts cat. PB CB 3-2004-17 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia The Estate of Paddy Bedford Bonhams, Sydney, 21 November 2011, lot 3B Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Paddy Bedford: Crossing Frontiers, Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art (AAMU), Utrecht, The Netherlands, 8 October 2009 - 11 April 2010 LITERATURE Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 161 (illus.) Petitjean, G., et al., Paddy Bedford: Crossing Frontiers, Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art (AAMU), Utrecht, The Netherlands, and Snoeck Editions, Heule, Belgium, 2009, p. 95 (illus.) RELATED WORK Camel Gap, 2004, ochres and pigment on linen, 150.0 × 180.0 cm, in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program by Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, 2012 ESSAY ‘Paddy Bedford’s paintings articulate a complex dialectic between modern materials and traditional pictorial conventions, contemporary experience, and ancient belief systems’.1 Drawing from two very different sources of knowledge, and painting with a deep sense of history and cultural responsibility, Paddy Bedford mapped the rich history of the east Kimberley using stories from his father’s, mother’s and uncle’s country. Within his canvases, historical events together with the more mundane stories about daily life on cattle stations co-exist with profound and lyrical understanding of the land and its creation stories. Bedford explored the important stories from its past whilst painting the bones of the landscape with the waterholes, stockyards and roads that he traversed throughout his life. Painted in 2001, Camel Gap, documents an evolution in the artist’s painting style, moving beyond the more familiar ochre representations of country produced by earlier East Kimberley artists, and predicting his further innovative changes in palette and technique. Camel Gap, also known as Gernawarliyan to the local Gija people, is found in the traditional country of the artist’s mother. Located to the south-east of Bedford Downs station and adjacent to Marty’s bore, a few kilometres east of the Springvale – Lansdowne Road, it is a place where in mythological times, the goanna Garndoowoolany camped in the ngarranggarni (Dreaming). Garndoowoolany called out to Marranyi, the dingo, whom he saw at the top of the hill. It was here that Marranyi got stuck and became part of the rock. Its English name refers both to the shape of the hill and, also to the Afghan cameleers who, in the early twentieth century, travelled past this place on their journey south from the port at Wyndham to remote Kimberley communities and further afield for trade. 1. Michael Dolk cited in Storer, R., ‘Paddy Bedford’ in Michael, L., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2006, p. 11 CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE
Deutscher and Hackett
Dec. 01, 2022
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, MENDOOWOORRJI – MEDICINE POCKET, 2005
Est: $140,000 - $160,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD (c.1922 - 2007) MENDOOWOORRJI – MEDICINE POCKET, 2005 ochres and pigments with synthetic binder on linen 150.0 x 180.0 cm signed with initials verso: PB bears inscription verso: date and Jirrawun Arts cat. PB8-2005-234 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia The Laverty Collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in August 2005 EXHIBITED Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 6 December 2006 – 15 April 2007, and touring, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 12 May – 22 July 2007; Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 11 August – 16 September 2007; University Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 16 November 2007 – 1 March 2008 LITERATURE Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, pp. 114 (illus.), 158 Beyond Sacred: Australian Aboriginal Art: The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne, 2008, pp. 233 (illus.), 343 Beyond Sacred: Australian Aboriginal Art: The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, edition II, Kleimeyer Industries Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 2011, pp. 246, 247 (illus.), 394 ESSAY Crafting his own unique representations of country, the paintings of Paddy Bedford evoke rocky escarpments, rivers and other amorphous features of the Kimberley landscape, whilst at the same time containing a learned and poetical knowledge of the land and its creation stories. His formal language is characterised by a symbiotic relationship between bold forms and an elegant, balanced composition. While Bedford's earlier work engaged the use of natural ochres to depict his environment, his later work employed a more restrained and pared-back palette, initially using only black and white, but later incorporating grey and pink washes, applied to canvas before the previously administered layer of paint had dried, a process known as ‘ wet on wet’. Paddy Bedford (c.1922 – 2007), also known as Goowoomji-Nyunkuny in his own Gija language, is one of the most important Indigenous Australian artists. Painting his first works on left-over building materials in 1998, aged 75, he soon became recognised as an innovator and influential artist through his unique depictions of East Kimberley history, and for evolving the artistic tradition forged earlier by Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji. Mendoowoorrji – Medicine Pocket, 2005 refers to the stretch of hills between Thoonbi and Thoowoonggoonarrin, to the south-east of Bedford Downs. Medicine Pocket was an important camping area pre-colonisation because of its ‘living water’. This region is replete with brooks and waterways flowing through open land and bordered by hills. Like so much of his work, our painting conveys Bedford’s intricate knowledge of his country, its features, topography, and sacred narratives. This land belongs to the artist’s mother’s dreaming, where in mythological times two men fought with sticks and became part of the landscape at Wanggarnaban (the place where Wanggarnal the crow camped, when she was a woman in the dreaming or Ngarranggarni in gija language). Bedford recalled ‘ Mendoowoorr country is not far, the country they call Mendoowoorrji. My uncles (my mother’s brothers) were all Mendoowoorr country owners. They have all died now. They are all buried now. It is alright, the country belongs to me now. That is why I can paint this country, because of my old people.’1 This painting was purchased by Colin and Liz Laverty directly from Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra in late August 2005 soon after it was finished. Paddy Bedford and Colin and Liz Laverty had formed a strong friendship very early on in the artist’s career, with the Laverty’s acquiring his first four recorded paintings made on discarded scraps of plywood in September 1998. During the following decade they acquired another 35 paintings by the artist, often having the opportunity to purchase works prior to exhibition. Paintings and gouaches by Paddy Bedford held in the Laverty collection have been loaned regularly to survey and other exhibitions featuring Bedford in Australia, and internationally. In 2006, Paddy Bedford’s oeuvre was honoured with a grand retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney where this work was displayed. Bedford’s first international retrospective exhibition took place in 2009 at the Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal art in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Since then, his work has been on display at several exhibitions worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris; and the Museum Ludwig, Cologne. 1. The artist in conversation with Frances Kofod, in Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2007, p. 134 CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE
Deutscher and Hackett
Mar. 30, 2022
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, UNTITLED, 1998
Est: $20,000 - $30,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD (c.1922 - 2007) UNTITLED, 1998 ochres and pigments on plywood 45.0 x 60.0 cm PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia, cat. PB1998.04) The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Sydney, no. 1138, acquired from the above in September 1998 (label attached verso) EXHIBITED Mapping Our Countries, Djamu Gallery, Australian Museum at Customs House, Sydney, 9 October 1999 – 27 February 2000 True Stories: Art of the East Kimberley, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 10 January – 27 April 2003 (label attached verso) Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 6 December 2006 – 15 April 2007, then touring to: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 12 May – 22 July 2007; Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 11 August – 16 September 2007; University Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 16 November 2007 – 1 March 2008 LITERATURE Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, pp. 63 (illus.), 143 (illus.) Beyond Sacred: Recent Painting from Australia’s Remote Aboriginal Communities: The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne, 2008, p. 229 (illus.) © courtesy of The Estate of Paddy Bedford
Deutscher and Hackett
Mar. 30, 2022
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, UNTITLED, 1998
Est: $20,000 - $30,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD (c.1922 - 2007) UNTITLED, 1998 ochres and pigments on composition board 46.0 x 74.0 cm initialled and dated verso: PB 98 bears inscription verso: Jirrawun cat no. 98 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia, cat. PB1998.02 The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Sydney, no. 1136, acquired from the above in September 1998 (label attached verso) EXHIBITED Mapping Our Countries, Djamu Gallery, Australian Museum at Customs House, Sydney, 9 October 1999 – 27 February 2000 True Stories: Art of t h e East Kimberley, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 10 January – 27 April 2003 (label attached verso) Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 6 December 2006 – 15 April 2007, then touring to: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 12 May – 22 July 2007; Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 11 August – 16 September 2007; University Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 16 November 2007 – 1 March 2008 LITERATURE Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, pp. 63 (illus.), 143 (illus.) Beyond Sacred: Recent Painting from Australia’s Remote Aboriginal Communities: The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne, 2008, p. 228 (illus.) Beyond Sacred: Recent Painting from Australia’s Remote Aboriginal Communities: The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, edition II, Kleimeyer Industries Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 2011, p. 240 (illus.) McDonald, E. (ed.), Volume One: MCA Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2012, p. 187 (illus.) © courtesy of The Estate of Paddy Bedford
Deutscher and Hackett
Mar. 30, 2022
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, UNTITLED, 1998
Est: $20,000 - $30,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD (c.1922 - 2007) UNTITLED, 1998 ochres and pigments on composition board 47.5 x 74.0 cm initialled and dated verso: PB 98 bears inscription verso: Jirrawun Arts cat. PB7983 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia, cat. PB1998.01 The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Sydney, acquired from the above in September 1998 EXHIBITED Mapping Our Countries, Djamu Gallery, Australian Museum at Customs House, Sydney, 9 October 1999 – 27 February 2000 True Stories: Art of the East Kimberley, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 10 January – 27 April 2003 (label attached verso) Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 6 December 2006 – 15 April 2007, then touring to: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 12 May – 22 July 2007; Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 11 August – 16 September 2007; University Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 16 November 2007 – 1 March 2008 LITERATURE Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, pp. 63 (illus.), 143 (illus.) Beyond Sacred: Recent Painting from Australia’s Remote Aboriginal Communities: The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne, 2008, p. 228 (illus.) Beyond Sacred: Recent Painting from Australia’s Remote Aboriginal Communities: The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, edition II, Kleimeyer Industries Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 2011, p. 240 (illus.) McDonald, E. (ed.), Volume One: MCA Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2012, p. 187 (illus.) © courtesy of The Estate of Paddy Bedford
Deutscher and Hackett
Mar. 22, 2022
PADDY BEDFORD (1922-2007) Untitled 2003 gouache on acid free crescent board
Est: $8,500 - $12,000
PADDY BEDFORD (1922-2007) Untitled 2003 gouache on acid free crescent board 51 x 76cm PROVENANCE: Jirrawun Arts, Western Australia 2003 William Mora Galleries, Melbourne (stamp verso) Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 3 June 2008, lot 64 Private collection, Melbourne OTHER NOTES: Please note that 5% of the sale price of this lot will be distributed directly to NEIVA (The National Endowment for Indigenous Visual Arts) to support this initiative.
Leonard Joel
Mar. 08, 2022
Paddy Bedford - Win Bil Ji - Old Bedford Station, 2001
Est: $18,000 - $25,000
Paddy Bedford (Nyunkuny) was born in 1922 at Ngarrmaliny on Bedford Downs cattle station in the East Kimberley and grew up leading an active ceremonial life while working as a stockman on Old Bedford, Old Greenvale, and Bow River cattle stations. Though he had been involved with ceremonial painting all his life, it was by chance that a gallery dealer happened upon some of his boards in a rubbish tip in the mid 1990s. He subsequently participated in two workshops organised by ethnographer and field collector Neil McLeod, that were conducted at the home of his contemporary and friend Jack Dale in 1997 and 1998, before Bedford joined Freddie Timms as a founding member of the Jirrawun Arts collective in 1998. This work depicts Police Rock Hole (or Win Bil Ji) as it was originally recorded by McLeod. Located on Old Bedford Station, its Gidja name is more familiarly recorded as Winperrji. This is an important site for the White Cockatoo Dreaming that is central to many of the creation stories from the Kimberley. The work can be read as both abstract and narrative, and as an overview of the landscape. The articulation of forms defined by lines of white dotting which appear to float across the canvas, are reminiscent of Rover Thomasâs work. In 2006, Paddy Bedford was selected as one of eight Aboriginal artists to contribute designs for the buildings of the MuseÌe du quai Branly, Paris. Later that year he was honoured with a retrospective exhibition at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
Cooee Art
Nov. 23, 2021
PADDY BEDFORD (1922-2007) Untitled 2003 gouache on acid free crescent board
Est: $10,000 - $15,000
PADDY BEDFORD (1922-2007) Untitled 2003 gouache on acid free crescent board 51 x 76cm PROVENANCE: Jirrawun Arts, Western Australia 2003 William Mora Galleries, Melbourne (stamp verso) Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 3 June 2008, lot 64 Private collection, Melbourne OTHER NOTES: Please note that 5% of the sale price of this lot will be distributed directly to NEIVA (The National Endowment for Indigenous Visual Arts) to support this initiative.
Leonard Joel
Jun. 08, 2021
Paddy Bedford - Jirljin (Red Pocket), 2000
Est: $25,000 - $35,000
Cooee Art Indigenous Fine Art Auction "Paddy Bedford stood out as a uniquely talented artist. He was already in his 77th year when he began painting his first works. Red Pocket is near the Springvale-Landsdown Road, between Ida Mere Yard and Janterrji, Southeast of Bedford Downs Station. Here, a pocket of 'red' earth is surrounded by hills in an area that is typically characterised by black soil plains running all the way to the base of the Durack Ranges at the edge of the East Kimberley plateau. There are a lot of small caves in the area that were traditional Gija camping places. In this painting two big hills are separated by a narrow gap through which people passed, either on foot when walking though country or on horses when mustering cattle. The sharp contrast between the field of red-brown ochre and the white negative space can be seen as a stylistic bridge between works by earlier east Kimberley painters such as Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji, and Bedford's works that were created with a singular original vision later in his career. Paddy went on to achieve great renown as an artist and was amongst the few selected to contribute to the permanent installation at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris. During his lifetime, he was honoured with the unprecedented recognition of a retrospective exhibition and a major catalogue by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney in 2007, which toured nationally." Contact Cooee Art for more information on this Aboriginal artwork.
Cooee Art
Mar. 17, 2021
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, THOOWOONGGOONARRIN, 2000
Est: $35,000 - $45,000
THIS LOT HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN
Deutscher and Hackett
Oct. 20, 2020
Paddy Bedford - Untitled, 1998
Est: $6,000 - $10,000
Characteristic of Paddy Bedford's painting style are richly ochred surfaces with minimal arrangements of circular shapes delineated by white dots. Though important Dreamings such as the Emu, Turkey, and Cockatoo are present in many of his works, like the narratives of his family history, they are not depicted in any figurative form. Paddy Bedford, an enigmatic octogenarian, stood out as a uniquely talented artist. He was already in his 77th year when he painted his first works, of which this was one of his earliest. He was photographed during its creation whist staying with his friend Jack Dale in Derby in 1998. Paddy went on to achieve great renown as an artist and was amongst the few selected to contribute to the permanent installation at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris. During his lifetime, he was honoured with the unprecedented recognition of a retrospective exhibition and a major catalogue by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney in 2007, which toured nationally.
Art Leven (formerly Cooee Art)
Mar. 18, 2020
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, (c.1922 – 2007), CAMEL GAP, 2001, ochres and pigments with synthetic binder on linen
Est: $80,000 - $120,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD (c.1922 – 2007) CAMEL GAP, 2001 ochres and pigments with synthetic binder on linen SIGNED: signed with initials verso: PB DIMENSIONS: 180.0 x 150.0 cm PROVENANCE: Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia (cat. PB 3-2001-97) RAFT Artspace, Darwin Private collection, Darwin, acquired from the above in 2002 EXHIBITED: Four Men, Four Paintings, RAFT Artspace, Darwin, March 2001 (as ‘Goanna Dreaming – Camel Gap’) Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 6 December 2006 – 15 April 2007, then touring to: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 12 May – 22 July 2007; Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 11 August – 16 September 2007; University Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 16 November 2007 – 1 March 2008 LITERATURE: Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, pp. 36 (illus.), 37, 149 (illus. ESSAY: From the time he first began painting on canvas in 1998, it took less than a decade for Paddy Bedford to be one of the most sought-after contemporary artists in Australia’s metropolitan galleries with collectors and museum curators keenly chasing his works at commercial exhibitions in East coast capitals. Like many of the first generation of contemporary indigenous artists, Paddy Bedford had lived a long and eventful life before taking up a brush to apply pigments and ochres to a stretched canvas of Belgian linen. As Michael Dolk comments in his introduction to the 2007 retrospective catalogue for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney ‘Paddy Bedford’s paintings articulate a complex dialectic between modern materials and traditional pictorial conventions, contemporary experience and ancient belief systems’.1 Bedford painted with a deep sense of history and cultural responsibility, using stories from his father’s country, or his mother’s and uncle’s country. Bedford explored the rich history of the east Kimberley and the important stories that have mapped its past, painting the bones of the landscape with the waterholes, stockyards and roads that he traversed all his life. Within his canvases, historical events and more mundane stories about daily life on cattle stations co-exist creating a body of work with profound and lyrical knowledge of the land and its creation stories. Camel Gap, 2001 documents an evolution in his painting style and characterises Bedford's link between the more familiar style of the earlier East Kimberley painters and his own innovative changes in style and technique in representations of country. Camel Gap is a story from the artist’s mother’s traditional lands that illustrates the shared recent history of Gija and non-Aboriginal people. Known as Gernawarliyan to the local Gija people, it is located to the south-east of Bedford Downs adjacent to Marty’s bore, a few kilometres east of the Springvale – Lansdowne Road. It is connected to a ngarranggarni (Dreamtime) story of the goanna Garndoowoolany who camped here. Garndoowoolany called out to Marranyi, the dingo, who he saw at the top of the hill. It was here that Marranyi got stuck and became part of the rock. Its English name refers to the shape of the hill and also to the Afghan cameleers who, in the early twentieth century, travelled past this place on their journey south from the port at Wyndham to remote Kimberley communities and further afield for trade. Until the time of his passing in 2007, Bedford continued to experiment with form and pictorial convention, his use of wet-on-wet painting techniques and gestural mark making elevated his work to new heights of contemporary expression. With his dramatic monochromatic contrasts and hints of pure figuration, his simple, minimalist approach was in stark contrast to the more recognised desert (dot) paintings that had become so-wel
Deutscher and Hackett
Mar. 18, 2020
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, (c.1922 – 2007), JINANGGANY – CATTLE CREEK, 2004, ochres and pigment with synthetic binder on Belgian linen
Est: $120,000 - $150,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD (c.1922 – 2007) JINANGGANY – CATTLE CREEK, 2004 ochres and pigment with synthetic binder on Belgian linen SIGNED: signed with initials verso: PB bears inscription verso: title and Jirrawun Arts cat. PB 6-2004-172 DIMENSIONS: 150.0 x 180.0 cm PROVENANCE: Jirrawun Art Corporation, Wyndham, Western Australia Helene Teichmann collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED: Looking Forward – Looking Back: Contemporary Works from the East Kimberley, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales, 12 October – 9 December 2018 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 17) LITERATURE: Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 154 (illus.)
Deutscher and Hackett
Feb. 13, 2020
3 Volumes Frangos, S. "Timothy Cook Dancing witrh the Moon"; Pub. UWA, 2012; "Paddy Bedford", MCA, 2008; "Jimmy Pike, Graphics from...
Est: $30 - $40
3 Volumes Frangos, S. "Timothy Cook Dancing witrh the Moon"; Pub. UWA, 2012; "Paddy Bedford", MCA, 2008; "Jimmy Pike, Graphics from the Christensen Fund Collection"
Lawsons
Aug. 28, 2019
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, (c.1922 – 2007), THOOWOONGGOONARRIN, 2006, ochres and pigment with acrylic binder on Belgian linen
Est: $120,000 - $160,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, (c.1922 – 2007), THOOWOONGGOONARRIN, 2006, ochres and pigment with acrylic binder on Belgian linen SIGNED: signed with initials verso: PB bears inscription verso: title, William Mora Art Fair, and Jirrawun Arts cat. PB 6-2006-258 DIMENSIONS: 150.0 x 180.0 cm PROVENANCE: Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia William Mora Galleries, Melbourne (stamped verso) Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 2006 EXHIBITED: William Mora Galleries at Melbourne Art Fair, Melbourne, 2 – 6 August 2006 Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 6 December 2006 – 15 April 2007, then touring to: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 12 May – 22 July 2007; Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 11 August – 16 September 2007; University Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 16 November 2007 – 1 March 2008 LITERATURE: Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, pp. 116 (illus.), 159 (illus.) ESSAY: Painting for Paddy Bedford was multi-layered; an expression of country and cultural memory, as well as a declaration of identity and statement of claim to the land itself. As Michael Dolk argues, painting suggests a physical and tactile relation to land, ‘To behold painting is to hold country and to remain beholden to its ancestral tradition’.1 Painting his first works in 1997, aged 75, Paddy Bedford soon became recognised as an innovator and important artist through his unique depictions of East Kimberley history and he is credited with evolving the artistic tradition forged earlier by Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji. Crafting his own representations of country, Bedford’s formal language is characterised by a symbiotic relationship between bold forms and an elegant, balanced composition. His painting evokes rocky escarpments, rivers and other amorphous features of the Kimberley landscape, whilst at the same time containing a learned and poetical knowledge of the land and its creation stories. As curator Russell Storer observes, ‘his paintings articulate a complex dialectic between modern materials and traditional pictorial conventions, contemporary experience and ancient belief systems’.2 Executed in 2006 and catalogued as painting PB 6-2006-258 in the chronological index of Bedford’s works, this painting represents the country of Thoowoonggoonarrin, also known as Tunganary, located to the south of Bedford Downs in his mother’s country. Tunganary Gorge is home to a permanent waterhole and is the dreaming place for Thoowoonggoonarrin, a large tree with dark leaves that is related to the fig tree ( Celtis philippinensis). The artist's maternal aunt died and is buried at this place. Thoowoonggoonarrin, 2006 was one of the last paintings executed by Bedford and can be seen as a culmination of the innovative changes in style and technique he developed to create his own representations of country. Here, large dominant forms along with the interplay between positive and negative space create a strikingly beautiful rendering of country. A sublime encrusted surface with washes of white and grey create a unique translucent quality, a consequence of the artist’s wet on wet painting technique. It is important to note that multiple narratives intertwine in Bedford’s paintings. Family stories, historical events and a deep connection to his country are often masked by the simple, bold starkness of his imagery and technique. 1. Dolk, M., ‘Are we Strangers in this Place’ in Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 20 2. Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 11 CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE
Deutscher and Hackett
Jul. 11, 2019
POSSIBLY PADDY BEDFORD, UNTITLED, ACRYLIC AND NATURAL EARTH PIGMENTS ON CANVAS LAID ON BOARD, 93 X 62CM, ARTIST NAME AND 10/09 INSCR...
Est: $700 - $1,400
POSSIBLY PADDY BEDFORD, UNTITLED, ACRYLIC AND NATURAL EARTH PIGMENTS ON CANVAS LAID ON BOARD, 93 X 62CM, ARTIST NAME AND 10/09 INSCRIBED ON DECORATORS ART LABEL VERSO
Leonard Joel
Jul. 04, 2019
POSSIBLY PADDY BEDFORD, UNTITLED, ACRYLIC AND NATURAL EARTH PIGMENTS ON CANVAS LAID ON BOARD, 93 X 62CM, ARTIST NAME AND 10/09 INSCR...
Est: $1,000 - $2,000
POSSIBLY PADDY BEDFORD, UNTITLED, ACRYLIC AND NATURAL EARTH PIGMENTS ON CANVAS LAID ON BOARD, 93 X 62CM, ARTIST NAME AND 10/09 INSCRIBED ON DECORATORS ART LABEL VERSO
Leonard Joel
Jun. 25, 2019
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, UNTITLED, 1998
Est: $18,000 - $25,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD (c.1922 – 2007) UNTITLED, 1998 natural earth pigments and synthetic binder on composition board DIMENSIONS: 102.0 x 122.0 cm PROVENANCE: Painted for Tony Oliver in Kununurra, Western Australia in 1998 Private collection, New South Wales This work is sold with an accompanying statement of provenance from Tony Oliver: ‘The attached image is a Paddy Bedford painting on hardboard by the artist at Pindan Avenue, Kununurra in 1998. The painting was amongst the first paintings the artist made for the nascent Jirrawun Arts group of Gija painters. The painting was created on the same day Hector Jandanay a close friend of Paddy’s named the painting group, Jirrawun (one mob standing together) which consisted of himself, Freddie Timms, Churchill Cann, Rusty Peters,Tiger Moore and Paddy Bedford. Tony Oliver helped form Jirrawun Arts with The Gija. He was founding Chief Executive Officer of Jirrawun Arts Aboriginal Arts incorporated under the Aboriginal Corporations Act and later Artistic Director of Jirrawun Arts Corporation. He worked closely with Paddy Bedford throughout the duration of his time with Jirrawun Arts until the artist’s death.’
Deutscher and Hackett
Apr. 10, 2019
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, (c.1922 - 2007), MAD GAP, 2004, ochres and pigments with acrylic binder on composition board
Est: $45,000 - $65,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, (c.1922- 2007), MAD GAP, 2004, ochres and pigments with acrylic binder on composition board SIGNED: signed with initials verso: PB bears inscription verso: Jirrawun Arts cat. PB CB 6-2004-31 and WM 2005 DIMENSIONS: 80.0 x 100.0 cm PROVENANCE: Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra William Mora Galleries, Melbourne (stamped verso) Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED: Paddy Bedford: Heart of Blackness, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne, 25 May 18 June 2005 LITERATURE: Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 162 (illus.) ESSAY: The art of Paddy Bedford is a convergence of what Marcia Langton calls the ‘beautiful and the brutal’.1 His paintings evoke the recent, often dark, history of the East Kimberley following white settlement, yet remain strikingly beautiful in their painterly rendering of country with a sublime encrusted surface, where washes of pink and grey create a unique translucent quality, a consequence of the artist’s wet on wet painting technique. Gooweriny or Mad Gap (The place of the Cypress Pine) is found in the southern part of the artist’s Mother’s country in the remote east Kimberley region of Western Australia. Located about 50 kilometres south of Bedford Downs Station, Gooweriny (also known as Jarlaloon) is situated beside a seasonal river with permanent water-holes and is surrounded by big hills where caves, utilised by local people as shelter before the arrival of Europeans, are found. Whilst renderings of the Mad Gap site by other artists from Bedford’s generation are mostly concerned with Gija myths, by means of a compositional structure that ‘stems from the memory of sites and features of the landscape corresponding with stories of the ngarranggarni, which form an evolving repertoire of designs or motifs,’2; Bedford challenges this interpretation in his representation. Locations integral to memories of the artist’s everyday stock-camp life, and the surrounding country he visited whilst mustering cattle, feature strongly in the composition of Mad Gap, 2004. Roads, rivers and landscape becoming recurring motifs in his work. Insightful in its renewal of memory from the killing times and station times, Bedford conveys the history, recent and past, within the geography of the region. In relation to Bedford’s art, Michael Dolk notes that it is ‘no longer sustained by the social relations that once defined the practice and meaning of painting in its ceremonial context, Bedford’s painting reveals an introspective dimension, a process of reflection and dialogue with different social and cultural dimensions of the Gardiya (whitefella) world’.3 1. Langton, M., ‘Goowoomji’s World’ in Michael, L., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 51 2. Dolk, M., ‘Are We Strangers in this Place?’ in Michael, L., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2006, p. 40 3. ibid., p. 17 CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE
Deutscher and Hackett
Feb. 24, 2019
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, (c.1922 – 2007), MENDOOWOORRJI - MEDICINE POCKET, 2000, ochres and pigment with acrylic binder on linen
Est: $55,000 - $65,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, (c.1922 – 2007), MENDOOWOORRJI - MEDICINE POCKET, 2000, ochres and pigment with acrylic binder on linen SIGNED: inscribed verso: artist’s name and Jirrawun Aboriginal Arts cat. PB CB 3 2000.64 DIMENSIONS: 180.0 x 150.0 cm PROVENANCE: Jirrawun Aboriginal Arts, Kununurra William Mora Galleries, Melbourne (stamped verso) Private collection, Melbourne LITERATURE: Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, pp. 83, 147 (illus.) CONDITION REPORT: This work is in excellent, stable and original condition.
Deutscher and Hackett
Nov. 28, 2018
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, (c.1922 – 2007), UNTITLED, 2004, gouache on crescent board
Est: $5,000 - $7,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, (c.1922 – 2007), UNTITLED, 2004, gouache on crescent board SIGNED: bears inscription verso: Jirrawun Arts cat. PB WB 3 2004-187 DIMENSIONS: 51.0 x 76.0 cm PROVENANCE: Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Sydney, acquired from the above in April 2004 EXHIBITED: Paintings from Remote Communities: Indigenous Australian Art from the Laverty Collection, Sydney, Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Zealand, 15 December 2007 – 24 February 2008; then touring to Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle, 5 July – 31 August 2008 LITERATURE: Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 177 (illus.) Beyond Sacred: Recent Painting from Australia’s Remote Aboriginal Communities: The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne, 2008, p. 234 (illus.) Beyond Sacred: Recent Painting from Australia’s Remote Aboriginal Communities: The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, edition II, Kleimeyer Industries Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 2011, p. 248 (illus.)
Deutscher and Hackett
Nov. 28, 2018
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, (c.1922 – 2007), WIRWIRJI – DONKEY HOLE, 2000, ochres and pigment with acrylic binder on Belgian linen
Est: $28,000 - $35,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, (c.1922 – 2007), WIRWIRJI – DONKEY HOLE, 2000, ochres and pigment with acrylic binder on Belgian linen SIGNED: signed with initials verso: PB bears inscription verso: To: CHAPMAN GALLERY., and Jirrawun Arts cat. PB 3 2000.68 DIMENSIONS: 80.0 x 100.0 cm PROVENANCE: Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra Chapman Gallery, Canberra Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 2000 LITERATURE: Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 147 (illus.) RELATED WORK: Ngarrmaliny – Cockatoo at Police Hole, 2003, ochres and pigment with acrylic binder on Belgian linen, 80.0 x 100.0 cm, illus. in Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 97 ESSAY: This work is accompanied by documentation from Jirrawun Arts. Catalogued as painting PB 3 2000.68 in Bedford's chronological index of works, this painting on linen was executed in 2000, and represents the country of Wirwirji . Also named Tea Hole, Donkey Hole and Police Hole by Paddy Bedford on different occasions, it is located approximately 10 kilometres north east of Bedford Downs homestead adjacent to Horse Creek in his mother's country and is home to a deep permanent waterhole. It is the place where his mother died when she was only middle-aged and where her body was wrapped in paperbark and placed in caves in the traditional ways of this country.1 Painting his first works in 1997 at the age of 75, Paddy Bedford soon became recognised as an innovator and important artist through his unique depictions of East Kimberley history. He is credited with evolving the artistic tradition forged earlier by Rover Thomas and Paddy Tjaminji. Crafting his own representations of country, Bedford’s formal language is characterised by the relationship between bold forms and an elegance and balance in composition. Passing on knowledge about his country, it’s features, and the sacred narratives connected to it as well as stories relating to everyday life is a fundamental purpose of his paintings. Bedford’s paintings recall the country where he grew up and in which he traversed in his everyday life. Rocky escarpments, rivers and other amorphous features of the Kimberley landscape are evident, whilst at the same time containing a learned and poetical knowledge of the land and its creation stories. 1. Kofed, F., ‘Places in Paddy Bedford’s Country’ in Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 135
Deutscher and Hackett
Nov. 28, 2018
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, (c.1922 – 2007), BUSH TURKEY DREAMING, 2001, ochres and pigment with acrylic binder on Belgian linen
Est: $40,000 - $60,000
PADDY NYUNKUNY BEDFORD, (c.1922 – 2007), BUSH TURKEY DREAMING, 2001, ochres and pigment with acrylic binder on Belgian linen SIGNED: signed with initials verso: PB bears inscription verso: artist’s name, title, date, and Jirrawun Arts cat. PB 8 2001-108 DIMENSIONS: 135.0 x 122.0 cm PROVENANCE: Jirrawun Arts, Kununurra Short Street Gallery, Broome Private collection, New South Wales LITERATURE: Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 150 (illus.) RELATED WORK: Lightning Creek, 2004, ochres and pigment with acrylic binder on composition board, 80.0 x 100.0 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, illus. in Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 101 This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Short Street Gallery and a Jirrawun Arts cataloguing sheet. ESSAY: Typified by bold forms and a balance in composition, the paintings of Paddy Bedford are a combination of modern materials and traditional pictorial conventions, contemporary experience and ancient belief systems. His art evokes the rivers, roads, waterholes, rock escarpments and other features of the Kimberley landscape, reflecting the artist’s knowledge of land he criss-crossed in his former life as a stockman. Behind the subtlety and harmony of each composition exists a learned and deep knowledge of the land and its creation stories describing how the landscape, plants and animals were created and in which the laws governing much human behaviour were instituted. Lerndijwaneman or Lightning Creek is in part of the artist’s father’s country and is the home of Birnkirrbal, the ancestral bush turkey. One of the artist’s important Dreamings and a favourite painting subject, Lerndijwaneman lies at the northern end of his country, beside the Wilson River in the shadow of the Durack Range. In mythological times, the site is where Birnkirrbal made camp after she had left the emu at Garnanganyjel (Mount King). As Paddy Bedford narrates the story, ‘The Turkey had travelled a long distance and stopped at Lerndijwaneman to rest and eat a little fruit called gawoorroony. [Here she] … went to sleep on the red ground (indicated by the circle in the upper part of the picture). If the emu had had her way, they would have kept walking and there would have been constant daylight. Without this rule for sleeping made by the turkey there would have been no rest, only constant day … Because the Turkey did that, we all sleep at night’.1 Lerndijwaneman is also the place where another ancestor, the eagle in the form of a man, flaked stone to make spearheads.2 1. Storer, R., Paddy Bedford, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. 80 2. Information from the accompanying catalogue notes from Jirrawun Arts CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE
Deutscher and Hackett
Nov. 27, 2018
Paddy Bedford (1922-2007) Untitled 1998
Est: $30,000 - $40,000
Though he had been involved with ceremonial painting all his life, it was by chance that a gallery dealer happened upon some of Paddy Bedford's boards in a rubbish tip in the mid 1990s. From such humble beginnings Paddy began painting formally in 1997, upon the formation of Jirrawun Aboriginal Arts. Characteristic of his painting style are richly ochred surfaces with minimal arrangements of circular shapes delineated by white dots. Though important Dreamings such as the Emu, Turkey, and Cockatoo are present in many of his works, like the narratives of his family history they are not depicted in any figurative form. Paddy Bedford, an enigmatic octogenarian, stood out as a uniquely talented artist. He was amongst the few selected to contribute to the permanent installation at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris and was honoured, during his lifetime, with the unprecedented recognition of a retrospective exhibition and a major catalogue by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney during 2007, which toured nationally.
Cooee Art
Nov. 27, 2018
Paddy Bedford (1922-2007) Untitled 2003
Est: $6,000 - $8,000
Paddy Bedford was born at Bedford Downs Station in the east Kimberley c.1922. Like many of his Gidja countrymen, Bedford worked as a stockman for the majority of his life in return for rations of tea, flour and tobacco. Though he had been involved with ceremonial painting all his life, it was by chance that a gallery dealer happened upon some of his boards in a rubbish tip in the mid 1990s. From such humble beginnings Paddy began painting formally in 1997, with the formation of Jirrawun Aboriginal Arts. Over the following decade his painting style developed from simple expanses of flat ochre to masterful luminous textured surfaces. His health and dexterity at various times dictated the medium in which he worked. Introduced to gouache and paper after 2000, he created intimate works that were equally successful as those depicted in ochres. In both mediums his paintings are imbued with authority and an absolutely distinctive individual language within the east Kimberley conventions. Paddy Bedford, an enigmatic octogenarian, stood out as a uniquely talented artist. He was amongst the few selected to contribute to the permanent installation at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris and was honoured, during his lifetime, with the unprecedented recognition of a retrospective exhibition and a major catalogue by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney during 2007, which toured nationally.
Cooee Art
Nov. 27, 2018
Rammey Ramsey (1935-) Untitled (My Country - Warlawoon) 2007
Est: $6,000 - $8,000
Ramsey is a senior Gija lawman who, like his contemporary Paddy Bedford, began painting relatively late in life for Jirrawun Aboriginal Arts Corporation. This work reflects his country at Elgee Cliffs, North West of Halls Creek, also known as Warlawoon Country. It references roads, stockyards, waterholes and vast gorge country. According to Ramsey 'When the strong wind comes blowing from the east it throws dust everywhere. It is a place for the rainbow snake, the dangerous one. In early days if strange people went there the people had to perform a welcoming ceremony, putting water from the country on them (the strangers). Lots of people would come to dance: Joonba style. My parents lived there.’
Cooee Art
Nov. 23, 2018
Five Bonhams Australia Catalogues Editions, including The Fehily Collection of Contemporary Art, Paddy Bedford [7]
Est: $30 - $60
Five Bonhams Australia Catalogues Editions, including The Fehily Collection of Contemporary Art, Paddy Bedford [7]
Theodore Bruce Auctioneers & Valuers