D.O.B: 1945-2021
LANGUAGE GROUP: Anmatyerre
COMMUNITY: Utopia, NT

Gloria Petyarre was born circa 1945 in the region of Utopia, located 270kms northeast from Alice Springs. Her language is Anmatyerre and her country is Aknangkere. Gloria is one of seven sisters who are also artists, such as the well-known Kathleen Petyarre, Nancy Petyarre, Violet Petyarre and Ada Bird Petyarre.

Gloria first gained recognition as an artist working in the medium of Batik, exhibiting with other Utopia women in shows around Australia and abroad from 1977 to 1987. In 1988 Gloria took up the medium of canvas and painted her first work for CAAMA (The Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association) in the exhibition titled –Utopia Women’s Painting; The First Works of Canvas; a Summer Project 1988 – 1989. In 1990 –1991, Gloria travelled to Ireland, London and India as a representative of the Utopia women accompanying the exhibition Utopia – A Picture Story. The exhibition was mounted in Dublin at the Royal Hibernian Academy; Tandanya, Adelaide; and The Meat Market Gallery, Melbourne.

In 1991, Gloria had her first solo exhibition at Australian Galleries in New York and at Utopia Art, Sydney, where she had other solo shows from 1993 to 1995. Gloria’s work has been included in major survey exhibitions including: Art Gallery of New South Wales touring Aboriginal Women’s Exhibition, 1991; Flash Painting – National Gallery of Australia, 1992; The Body Paint Collection at Bishop Museum, Hawaii, 1992, which also toured the United States. In 1993 Gloria received a Tapestry Commission for the Victorian Tapestry Workshop and in 1994 for the Law Court in Brisbane. In 1995/96 Gloria received a Full Fellowship grant from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Board of the Australia Council, and in March 1999 was awarded the coveted Wynne prize. Gloria was the first Aboriginal artist to receive this prestigious award for landscape painting.

Gloria’s work features in the collection of almost every major Art Gallery in each Australian capital city and also in the Holmes à Court collection. In 1998, a work on paper was acquired by the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery. Also in 1998 a major canvas was acquired by the Levi Collection in Seattle, USA, and a Kansas City institution requested Gloria in conjunction with her husband, Ronnie Price, to design a mural which is now a highlighted main attraction. She is featured on the cover of Michael Bolton’s The Art of Utopia and more recently in Fire and Shadow by Anna Voight  and Nevill Drury and also  in New Visions: New Perspectives by Anna Voight. Gloria is featured in the book Dreamings of The Desert, published recently by The Art Gallery of South Australia.

Gloria’s main Dreamings are Mountain Devil, Bush Medicine and Aknangkere Growth. In Mountain Devil Dreaming Gloria uses a bold linear design accompanied by a small amount of dot work to depict this small lizard like creature. Alternatively Gloria may cover the entire canvas using small intricate dots in various colours creating an almost three-dimensional effect. Both styles are indicative of Gloria’s extraordinary talent for colour and pattern.

Gloria also developed a series of works, even more contemporary in style, known as Atnangkere Growth. In these paintings Gloria depicts her country using lines & swirls of colour that run onto the canvas and are intermingled with a variety of dot work. These paintings are rich in texture and are testament to Gloria’s artistic creativity. By far her most popular style has been Bush Medicine Dreaming In these works, Gloria depicts the leaves of a particular type of shrub that has medicinal qualities and which Gloria, as a healer, is well practiced in.

Gloria uses a range of different brush strokes ranging from the large to the very fine using colours, which represent the growth of the leaves at certain times of the year. The expert use of colour and movement displayed in these pieces confirm Gloria’s status as a sophisticated contemporary artist.

Gloria sadly passed away in 2021 and will be dearly missed.

 

EXHIBITIONS:

2021 Private Collection | Private View: One Collector’s Passion & Soul, Cooee Art, Redfern.
2021 Abstraction, Utopia Art, Sydney.
2021 Country in Mind, University of the Sunshine Coast, QLD.
2021 Voyage across Aboriginal Australia – Founders’ Favourites, Fondation Burkhardt-Felder Arts et Culture, Moitiers, Switzerland.
2021 Top Ten Artists 2020, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney.
2021 Big Names Little Paintings, Cooee Art Gallery, Sydney.
2020 Colours of Spring, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney.
2020 Pointillism Perfection, Art Mob, Hobart.
2020 Still in the Desert, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane.
2020 Director’s Choice 2020, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney.
2020 Top Ten – Our Most Popular Artists 2019, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney.
2019 Summer Show & Art Parade, Salt, Queenscliff, VIC.
2019 Defining tradition | black + white, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney.
2019 International Women’s Day, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney.
2019 Defining tradition | the colurists, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney.
2019 Landscape Colours, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle.
2018 Earth’s Creation 2: Emily Kame Kngwarreye & Family, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney.
2018 Mercedes Me x Pwerle Gallery Art Exhibition at Mercedes Me Melbourne.
2018 Pwerle Gallery ‘Utopia exhibition of four generations’, Adelaide.
2017 Gems from the Stockroom, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney.
2017 A SWEEP continues, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane.
2017 Sacred Marks, JGM Gallery, London.
2017 Utopia – The artists of Delmore Downs, Yaama Ganu Gallery, Moree.
2016 Utopia Sisters – The Petyarre Women, Delmore Gallery with RedSea Gallery, Brisbane.
2015  Wynners, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney.
2012 Colour of Dreaming Australian Indigenous Art, ARA ART, Seoul, South Korea, in conjunction with DACOU, The Australian Embassy in Korea and Cross Bay Gallery.
2012 Group exhibition Ubiquitous Rhythms: Night Sky, DACOU Melbourne, Melbourne.
2012 Utopia: Connecting Land + Ceremony, Metropolis Gallery, Geelong, VIC.
2011 New Works from Utopia Artists, DACOU Melbourne, Melbourne VIC.
2011 Fresh from Utopia, DACOU Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC.
2011  Aboriginal Art Collectors’ Gallery, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney.
2010 Desert Art from Utopia, presented by DACOU & Southern Health, Monash Hospital, Clayton, VIC.
2010 Masters of the Australia. East Meets West: Utopia & Papunya Art, Gongpyeong Art Space in conjunction with DACOU, Seoul, Korea.
2010 Solo exhibition, Gloria Petyarre. Recent Works, DACOU Melbourne, Middle Park, VIC.
2010 A Summer Exhibition from The Lands, group exhibition, McCulloch’s Aboriginal Art and Flinders Village Café, Flinders, VIC.
2010 Utopia, Group exhibition, DACOU Melbourne, Middle Park, VIC.
2010 Desert Rhythms, group exhibition, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, VIC.
2010 New Beginnings, Central Art – Aboriginal Art Store, Alice Springs (touring Germany).
2010 Susan McCulloch’s The Summer Show, Group Exhibition, Salt Contemporary Art, Queenscliff, VIC.
2009 Solo exhibition, Gloria Petyarre, A Summer Collection, DACOU Gallery Melbourne, Middle Park, VIC.
2009 Utopia, Colors of the Desert, Gongpyeong Art Space in conjunction with DACOU, Australian Embassy in Korea & Crossbay Gallery, Seoul, Korea.
2009 Wynne Landscape Prize, Art Gallery of NSW , Sydney, NSW.
2009  A decade of Australia’s indigenous fine art 1999-2009, Salt Gallery, Queenscliff, VIC.
2009  Size Matters, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney.
2009  5th Shalom Gamarada Aboriginal Art Exhibition, University of NSW, Sydney.
2009  Abstraction, Utopia Art, Sydney.
2008  Three Petyarres, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney.
2008  Gooch’s Utopia, Flinders University, Adelaide.
2007 Group exhibition, New Works from Utopia, Space Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
2007 Group exhibition, Utopia in New York. Robert Steele Gallery, New York, USA.
2007 The Petyarre Sisters 2007, Central Art – Aboriginal Art Store, Alice Springs.
2006  A Survey, Utopia Art, Sydney.
2006  National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC, USA.
2006  Utopia, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne.
2006  National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC.
05/06 Duo exhibition, Gloria Tamerre Petyarre & Ada Bird Petyarre, Black Abstract, Woolloongabba Art Gallery and touring, Brisbane,QLD.
2004 Group Exhibition, Sanjski cas. Dreamtime, Cankarjevdom, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
2004  Power of The Land, Utopia Art, Sydney.
2004  Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle.
2004  Curtin University of Technology, Perth.
2004  Ivan Dougherty Gallery, COFA, NSW.
2004  The Women’s Show, Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne.
2004  Utopia: Gloria, Barbara, Minnie, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne.
2003  Glen Eira City Gallery, Melbourne.
2003  Chapel off Chapel, Melbourne.
2003  National Gallery of Victoria at Federation Square, Melbourne.
2003 The Other Side of the Land, Art from Central Australia,Group Exhibition, Berlin, Germany ( in cooperation with the Aboriginal Art Galerie Bähr, Speyer).
2003 20th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT.
2002  Light Square Gallery, Adelaide
2002  Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
2002  Knut Grothe Galeri, Charlottlenlund, Copenhagen
2002  Two Thirds Sky, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre, NSW
2002  The Utopia Six, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne
2002  Royal Exhibition Hall, Melbourne
2002  Gallery Rai, Tokyo, Japan
2002  Chapel off Chapel, Melbourne
2002  National Gallery of Victoria at Federation Square, Melbourne
2002 Solo exhibition, Leaves You Thinking, World Vision of Australia, Walkabout Gallery, Sydney, NSW.
2002  Solo exhibition of Aknangkere Growth paintings at Gallery Savah, Sydney, NSW.
2002  Mixed Utopia exhibition at Knut Grothe Galeri in Charlottlenlund Copenhagen, Denmark.
2002 Mixed Utopia exhibition at Galerie a Le Temps Du Reve, France.
2001  Two Women- Dreamings- exhibited with Barbara Weir at Dreamtime Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.2001 Icons of Australian Aboriginal Art, Singapore.
2001 Brisbane City Gallery, Brisbane.
2001 Kunst der Gegenwart, Vienna, Austria.
2001 Manawatu Gallery, New Zealand.
2000  DACOU in association with AMP- an official sponsor of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games held a mixed Utopia art exhibition in the AMP building, Sydney.
2000  Australian National University, Canberra.
2000  FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane.
2000  Australian National University, Canberra.
2000  Old Parliament House, Canberra.
2000  Royal Exhibition Hall, Melbourne.
1999 Bush Garden, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle.
1999 My Dreaming, Redrock Gallery, Melbourne.
1999 Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
1999 Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth.
1999 Embassy of Australia, Washington, U.S.A.
1999 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, U.S.A.
1999 New England Regional Art Museum.
1999  Solo exhibition, Wildflowers, Mbantua Gallery, Alice Springs, NT.
1999  Self titled solo exhibition- Flinders Lane Gallery- Melbourne, VIC.
1999 Solo Exhibition, Red Desert Gallery, Eumundi, Queensland.
1999 Solo exhibition, Gloria Petyarre: A Survey, New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale, NSW.
1998 Solo exhibition, Utopia Art, Sydney, NSW.
1998  Solo exhibition The Aknangkere Growth Paintings-First Release – Chapman Gallery- Canberra, ACT.
1998 Exhibitions in Europe inc. Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland.
1998 Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs.
1998 Chapman Gallery, Canberra.
1998 The Adelaide Festival Theatre, Adelaide.
1998 Propositions Australiennes, Galerie Luc Queyrel, Paris.
1997  Australian Galleries, Sydney.
1997  Instant Pictures, Utopia Art, Sydney.
1997  Galerie de Stassart, Bruxelles.
1997  Sutton Gallery, Melbourne.
1996  Seoul Arts Centre, Korea.
1996  Old Parliament House, Canberra.
1996  Niagara Galleries, Melbourne.
1996  William Mora Galleries, Melbourne.
1996  Royal Exhibition Hall, Melbourne.
1996  S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney.
1995  Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
1995  Mitchell Galleries, State Library of NSW, Sydney.
1995  National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
1995  Aboriginal and Tribal Art Centre, Sydney.
1995  Canberra Museum of Art, Gifu, Japan.
1995  National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
1995  Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.
1995  Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney.
1995  Solo exhibition, Gloria Petyarre: On the Line, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW.
1994  Solo exhibition, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW.
1993  Solo exhibition, Awelye, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW.
1992 Group exhibition, New Tracks Old Lands, Boston and touring US.
1992  Group exhibition, Aboriginal Art: Utopia in the Desert, Nogizaki Arthall , Tokyo, Japan.
1990  Travelling group batik exhibition Utopia – A Picture Story, the Holmes à Court Collection, toured Ireland, England & India.
1990  Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide.
1990 Group Exhibition, Tagari Lia: My Family, Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, Ireland.
1989  Utopia Women’s Paintings, the First Works on Canvas, A Summer Project, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney.
1988  Group exhibition, Time Before Time, Austral Gallery, St Louis, USA.
1998  Bloomfield Gallery, Sydney.
1984 First National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Art Gallery of Northern Territory, Darwin.

 

COLLECTIONS:

Art Gallery of New South Wales Art Gallery of Western Australia National Gallery of Australia National Gallery of Victoria Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory.
Queensland Art Gallery: Gallery of Modern Art.
Museum of Victoria, Melbourne Powerhouse Museum, Sydney British Museum.
Singapore Art Museum.
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, USA Campbelltown City Art Gallery.
Flinders University, South Australia.
Gold Coast City Art Gallery Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery Riddoch Art Gallery, SA.
Woollongong City Art Gallery.
Griffith University Collection Queensland University of Technology University of New South Wales University of the Sunshine Coast, QLD.
Woollongong University Collection Supreme Court, Brisbane.
Art Bank Sydney.
Allen, Allen & Hemsley Baker-McKenzie.
Janet Holmes à Court Collection.
Kerry Stokes Collection.
James D. Wolfensohn Collection Macquarie Bank, Sydney.
Westpac, New York.
Pat Corrigan Collection, Sydney.
Musee du quai Branly, Paris. 
Musee des arts d’Afrique et d’Oceanie, Paris.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Donald Holt Collection, Australia.
Pwerle Gallery Collection, Australia.
 

 

AWARDS:

2009 Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney – Finalist.
2009 Kings School Art Prize, Sydney – Winner.
2008 25th NATSIAA, Darwin – Finalist.
2007 Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney – Finalist.
2006 Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney – Finalist.
2005 Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney – Finalist.
2004 Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney – Finalist & Highly Commended.
2004 Fremantle Print Award 2004, Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle – Finalist.
2003 20th NATSIAA, Darwin – Finalist.
2002 Redlands Westpac Art Prize, Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney – Finalist.
2000 5th National Indigenous Heritage Art Award 2000, (Reconciliation Prize), Old Parliament House, Canberra – Finalist Canberra, ACT.
2000 Top 50 Collectable Artists, Australian Art Collector Magazine.
1999 Top 50 Collectable Artists, Australian Art Collector Magazine.
1999 Wynne Landscape Prize, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney.
1998 Fellowship, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board, Australia Council.
1998 National Works on Paper Award, MPRG, Mornington VIC.
1996 The Third National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Art Award, Old Parliament House, Canberra – Finalist.
1996 Full Fellowship Grant, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Board, the Australia Council.
1994 Tapestry Commission for the Law Courts, Brisbane.
1993 Mural for Kansas City Zoo.
1993 Design for tapestry for Victorian Tapestry Workshop, Melbourne.
 
 

See below some of her beautiful pieces for sale: