Emily Kame Kngwarreye

Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Aboriginal Australian artist who became one of the country's most celebrated painters late in a remarkable life. Born around 1910 in the remote community of Utopia in the Northern Territory, she spent most of her years far from the art world and only took up painting on canvas in her late seventies. In roughly the last eight years of her life she produced an astonishing number of works.

Her paintings draw on her deep knowledge of her country and its plants, especially the yam, and on the ceremonial body and sand designs of her culture. Yet the results, dense fields of dots, sweeping lines, and glowing color, also speak powerfully to viewers who know nothing of that background. Her work now hangs in major museums and stands among the most important Australian art of the twentieth century.