BUTCHER JOE NANGAN, Untitled, c.1970 & Untitled, c.1970

BUTCHER JOE NANGAN Nyikina language, c.1900 - 1989 Untitled, c.1970 & Untitled, c.1970 pencil and watercolour on paper 25 x 35 cm each; 28 x 39 cm each (framed) signed front bottom left 'Butcher Joe Nangan'; inscribed verso $5.50 PROVENANCE The Artist, Broome, Western Australia Vera Hanoe, Western Australia acquired from the above thence by descent Private Collection, New South Wales Butcher Joe Nangan is a senior custodian of law and ceremony from Yawuru country whose extensive body of drawings recorded his Country. Born across Dampier Creek from Broome, his Country lay east of the town, carrying rights inherited through both his Walmajarri father and his Nyikina mother, and it was this Country's ritual knowledge that he spent his life acquiring and, in time, transmitting. He was already accomplished as an engraver of boab nuts and pearl shell until 1955 when he moved to pencil and watercolour, producing hundreds of works depicting flora, fauna and mythological spirit beings in a distinctly Western naturalistic idiom. His trade name came from years working as a station and mission butcher, a vocation that sat alongside his growing authority as a lawman and keeper of song and dance. He was most prolific through the 1970s and 1980s, fulfilling regular commissions for Western Australian dealer Mary Macha, who arranged exhibitions of his work in Perth, Broome and Hobart between 1981 and 1983. Nangan died in Broome in January 1989, having been awarded the Order of Australia Medal. The drawings' own history is anchored in Broome, where the vendor's family maintained deep, long-standing ties. The original owner Vera Hanoe, settled in the town in the 1940s, in a house since heritage-listed as Short St Gallery, and the vendor's mother lived there for over thirty years, closely connected to a community where, by family account, most people knew everyone. It was most likely during this period that the drawings were acquired directly from the artist, before passing by descent within the family. © BUTCHER C JANANGOO / Copyright Agency, 2026

Estimate:$1,406.63

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