AUSTRALIAN ARTIST

 Albert Namatjira

28 July 1902 – 8 August 1959

I believe one of the most successful Australian Artist is an Aboriginal painter named Albert Namatjira.  Best know for his water colours of the Aussies Outback. 

He was born in Central Australia and was taught to paint by a well know artist named Rex Barttarbee.  Namatjira learnt very quickly and two years after his first lesson he exhibited and sold all 41 of his painting in Melbourne.

Namatjira was famous for painting the White Ghost Gums of the bush

Namatjira paintings became very popular and he enjoyed huge success throughtout Australia.  Some of his painting reside in major art museum throughout Australia.

In 1956 he was presented to the Queen of England and in 1957 became the first Aboriginal citizen of Australia.

This privilege gave him the right to vote, buy alcohol and build a house anywhere he chose.  At the time, rights such as these did not exist amongst Aboriginal people. 

Namatjira was seen by the Law at the time to be abusing these rights by supplying the Aboriginal people with alcohol and consequently was sent to jail.

He died soon after his release from jail, completely disillusioned with white society.

I don’t care if we have I-pods at school anymore because they are good and bad. Some of the reasons they are good are: that they play music, you can put recorded classes on them and are good at rewarding students for good behaviour. The bad reasons for I pods are that they cost lots, can be stolen or broken easily, can store bad music, pictures and movies and last of all makes it hard for children to concentrate.

How did European settlement change aboriginal people’s way of life?

When the first Europeans came to Australia they gave the aborigines goods and they misunderstood they thought the goods were to pass through their land this became a major problem. Now the Europeans steal their food and weapons learning to use them for revenge. Since the Europeans came to Australia the population declined rapidly due to violence and disease such as smallpox, influenza, measles and whooping cough. The aborigines were robbed off their land, fishing and hunting grounds and exposed to the perils of alcohol. They also copied the bad European habits.

My study buddy and I were researching on a famous Australian called Sir Donald Bradman. He is the world’s best cricket player and to prove it I have some information about him. He was born in New South Wales on the 27^th of August, 1908. He died in 2001 at his house in Adelaide, South Australia. In his career he scored 6,996 runs at an average of 99.94 runs per game.

People who are born in Australia are Australian. Also, the people that immigrate to Australia that get an Australian citizenship certificate are legally Australian citizens. Most Australians respect the environment and help to control the way Australia develops as a country.

We’re over half way through term one and I’m enjoying school. Last week I went fishing and caught a 70cm carp with sweet corn (bait) off the beach. At school we been learning about blogs and so far I’ve been enjoying it. We went camping and I went to see a moive at a friend’s house.