Raymond Hingston has generously donated a painting to the Collie Gallery Group’s collection by one of the most celebrated of the Carrolup children artists who created work at the Carrolup Native Settlement in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Collie Gallery Group Chairperson Elizabeth Lindsay said that the group was very grateful that the first work to be donated for the new art gallery is by a recognised indigenous artist who worked in the Collie district for many years.
“We extend our sincere thanks to Mr Hingston for making such a significant contribution to the gallery,” said Ms Lindsay.
The artist Reynold Hart, born 1938, was a Noongar artist and member of the Pinjarup and Kaniyang peoples of the South West of Western Australia.
Hart was taken to the Carrolup Native Settlement near Katanning when he was four years old, and was amongst the celebrated group of children artists who were encouraged to draw and paint their surroundings by teachers Noel and Lily White, the couple that managed the Carrolup School between 1945-51.
Hart’s landscape paintings and pastels, along with those of other Carrolup children artists were exhibited and sold to wide acclaim in Australia, Europe and New Zealand in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Hart kept painting in his adult years. His works are in the collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Berndt Museum of Anthropology and the Picker Gallery at Colgate University in New York. Hart passed away in Collie, Western Australia, in 1981.
Mr Hingston purchased the painting directly from Hart in the early 1980s when he was travelling around Collie selling his work door-to-door.
Artist information is provided by Design & Art Australia Online