The Drover's Boy Series of Paintings

AG312692
Published by Bob Marchant 1995
Hardcover
ISBN: 9780646248219

Bob Marchant was born in Dimboola.

A small town in the Wimmera district of Victoria.

The year was 1938. It wasn't until over forty years later, in 1980 that he began to paint.

Success came quickly when he won the coveted Sulman Prize in consecutive years.

1988 judged by Margaret Olley.

1989 judged by John Olson.

In 1993 he decided to move from Sydney to Bundeena, a small town in The Royal National Park.

Here he built a large studio overlooking Hordens Beach and Port Hacking to the north, coast-line, bushland and rainforest to the south.

It proved to be a decisive move in his career as a painter. Only now did he feel he had the space in which to work and the confidence to tackle a major subject that had haunted his imagination for years.

The subject was "The Drover's Boy," a song written and sung by Ted Egan.

It tells the story of drovers taking cattle overland to the Northern Territory and Kimberley Region.

And the part that Aboriginals and particularly Aboriginal women played in those early pioneering days.

Over the previous five years Marchant had painted the pictures a thousand times in his mind.

In February, 1994 he lined up fourteen large canvases and began the series of paintings. The paintings that followed took just six months to complete.

These powerful narrative paintings record the horror and the shame, the toughness and the tender-ness, the anger and the love between the boss drover and a young Aboriginal girl.

Marchant believes it's a part of our history that should be taught to all young Australians. "Only by knowing the truth of what has gone before can we hopefully look forward to a better understanding in the future."

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