The story of 16 Aboriginal men from different cultural and linguistic groups, from Western Australia and the Northern Territory who worked at Birrundudu Station in 1945, will be told at a new exhibition launching next week at Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery.
Birrundudu Drawings, curated by the Berndt Museum as part of Perth Festival 2026, demonstrates the vibrancy, depth and power of Aboriginal art, created 25 years before the emergence of the Western Desert art movement at Papunya in 1971.
Over a period of three months, the men created 810 crayon drawings on paper, commissioned by anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt.
Using this unfamiliar medium, the men documented their extensive knowledge of Country, ancestral creation, history and ceremonies of the region. Birrundudu Drawings showcases more than 100 of these works, none of which have been exhibited before.
The exhibition is the result of four years of collaborative research involving more than 40 cultural authorities, descendants, academics, researchers, advisors and museum workers who have helped bring back to life the stories and cultural significance of the drawings.
The research team visited the communities of Balgo, Billiluna, Halls Creek, Kalkarindji (Wave Hill), Lajamanu, Yuendumu and Mparntwe (Alice Springs) to share the collection with descendants of the artists and others connected to its cultural significance.
Robert McKay, grandson of Birrundudu artist Paddy Padoon Jangala, said his family didn’t know about the drawings. “We didn’t go looking for them. It’s like they came looking for us,’’ he said.
This exhibition also marks the 50th anniversary of the Berndt Museum, now an Indigenous-led cultural institution within the School of Indigenous Studies at The University of Western Australia.
Museum Co-Directors Dr Jessyca Hutchens (Palyku) and Dr Stephen Gilchrist (Yamatji) said the Birrundudu Drawings represented one of the most extraordinary archives of Indigenous knowledge in any Australian museum.
“The re-engagement with these drawings has been actively shaping how we think about significant collections of Indigenous peoples’ cultural heritage, how we should work with them and where we should be going,” Dr Hutchens said.
“The lessons we can draw from this vast archive, supported by other senior knowledge holders and their families and communities, is of profound importance.”
Dr Gilchrist said the creators of the drawings had produced an immense gift of their shared and overlapping cultural knowledge and custodial responsibilities.
“They were created at a time when so much was being rapidly and deliberately dispersed and destroyed,” he said. “Now, their descendants and communities can bring story, song, place and ceremony back to life.”
A delegation of descendants and individuals with cultural ties to the drawings will travel to Perth for the exhibition, which opens with a performance in the Sunken Gardens on Friday 13 February. On Saturday 14 February at 12.30pm the gallery will host floor talks featuring descendants, cultural authorities, artists, curators and researchers.
The exhibition runs until April 4, and the gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday from 11am to 4pm and admission is free. For more information visit the gallery website.
WARNING: Aboriginal people are warned that this exhibition will include the names and images of people who have died.
Images above: Jimmy Tchooga, Luurnpa (Kingfisher), 2023, Berndt Museum Collection [2023/0018]. Porgi Ratnya Jungarrayi, left (Jampu) Jungarrayi and Kulminy (Tommy) Jakamarra drawing at Birrundudu, 25 March 1945. Image: Ronald Berndt/Berndt Museum Collection. Splinter Dardayi Yani Jangala, Not titled (Open ceremony, performed at sunset), 1945, Birrindudu, Northern Territory, wax crayon on brown paper, Berndt Museum, UWA [1945/0140].