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Queenie McKenzie (Nakarra)

Formerly Oakes, or Mingmarriya

Queenie McKenzie (Nakarra)

Queenie McKenzie (Nakarra)

1915 – 16 November 1998

Formerly Oakes, or Mingmarriya

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PROFILE

Queenie McKenzie (Nakarra)

1915 – 16 November 1998

Queenie McKenzie was born c.1930 at the Old Texas station on the Ord River in the north west of Western Australia. As a child, her Aboriginal mother protected her from removal to an orphanage under the prevailing government policy that took Aboriginal children such as Queenie, who’s absent father was white. As a young girl she began her life of cooking for the stockmen, tending and riding horses, and journeying as they drove cattle across the vast pastoral region of the north. During these years Queenie befriended Rover Thomas who arrived at Old Texas looking for work when 14 years of age. Later, she liked to tell and paint the story of how she saved his life after a riding accident by washing his wounds and sewing him up with a darning needle. When distant political decisions forced Aboriginal workers to leave outback cattle stations, the Gidja people faced a difficult time of unemployment, dislocation, and impoverishment. During the seventies, the establishment of the Warmun community drew her tribe together once more and it became a cultural focal point within the Kimberley area, with Queenie playing a leading role in restoring her people’s culture and working toward a secure future. Involvement in community affairs led Queenie, by this time in her fifties, to experiment with representational art as an educational tool in the local school where she taught Gidja language and cultural traditions. The two-way education given at the school (Aboriginal and European style) contributed to a resurgence of cultural identity that strengthened the community. Besides helping to maintain ancient knowledge of sacred sites and the Dreaming mythology, it provided the young with a spiritual awareness and involvement in community ceremonies. Rover Thomas, who was receiving recognition and income from his painting by this time, encouraged Queenie’s first artistic experiments. The distinctive Kimberley style developed by Paddy Jaminji, Rover Thomas, and others spatially condensed the landscape into a profile view that draws relevant sites and events together into one visual field, with rivers or journeys often inserted from an overview. Queenie’s style embraced these elements and added figurative imagery to relate the stories of her life, her Dreaming and the historical events that constituted the living memory of the Gidja people. Mixing the traditional ochres herself, Queenie liked to create different colours, particularly soft pinks and purples, which became the recognizable hallmark of her style. Binding the ochres with bush gum provided a translucent and textured surface to her canvases. She became the first woman to gain prominence in the East Kimberley painting movement, inspiring other women to become involved and to embrace their 'women’s law business' of which she was a respected custodian. Queenie often related that she would lie in bed each night thinking of the story that she would paint the following day. 'Every night I sleep,' she once told me, ‘I think what I want to tell em'. She never hesitated when faced with a new canvas. Often she would recreate the country of her youth. Her birthplace and its geographical location in relation to Blackfella's Creek; the large termite mound that was small when she was a child but grew bigger and bigger throughout her life; the hills of Rosewood Station where she had worked as a cook for the Aboriginal stockmen; Old Texas Station where men would collect white quartz used for spear heads; Corella, Echidna, and Bowerbird Dreaming sites and many more. Her manner was always decisive and vigorous, reflecting her belief in the importance of maintaining her culture and recording its history. This included the brutal massacres of her people, long remembered in their oral history. In 1997, Germaine Greer’s (1997) public denunciation of the contemporary Aboriginal art movement was published just as Queenie’s exhibition opened in Sydney. Unexpectedly thrown into the limelight and called upon to respond, 84 year old Queenie did so with an air of genuine authority. Greer’s article and Queenie’s affronted response demanded attention from art critics, academics and collectors. The growing interest in and respect for the real-life artists of this emerging industry, like Queenie, forced these critics to reconcile their nostalgia for an untainted past with the ways in which Aboriginal art had changed as it interacted with the dominant culture and the global economy. While these paintings on canvas demonstrate a break from traditions they affirm an inevitable basis within those traditions and have fundamentally rekindled the heart and soul of fractured communities. At the same time, in the words of a leading critic, it has 'produced some of the most outstanding and original works in this country' (McDonald 1997). Throughout the mature phase of her career Queenie painted for a variety of people and galleries. Besides Waringarri Arts she painted for anyone who commissioned her works at the Pensioner Unit in the community until, in 1997, the council appointed Maxine Taylor to run the self-funded Warmun Traditional Artists. Tragically Queenie passed away just as the Warmun Art Centre was in its establishment phase in 1998. During this period the majority of her major works were commissioned by entrepreneurs who visited the community from time to time. In the last two years of her life she sat each day at her table beneath the art centre building, the only woman, and equal, amongst a group of old men who included Rover Thomas, Jack Britten, Hector Jandanay, Beerbee Mungnari, and Henry Wambini. Her best period as an artist was in the mid 1990’s while she was still strong. During the last two years of her life she painted less well as the sight from her tiny eyes began to fail. Her paintings became less controlled, yet even at this stage in her career she produced some wonderful paintings such as Three Sisters 1997 and Woolwoolji Springs 1997. One of Queenie’s best-known themes was the massacre at Mistake Creek. Three years after her death the National Museum of Australia purchased a particularly fine example from a Lawson~Menzies auction. The acquisition came shortly after Sir William Deane, then Governor General and former Chief Justice, had traveled to the site of the massacre and offered a public apology to the Aboriginal people for the incident and others like it, so re-igniting Australia’s ‘history wars’. The purchase generated further controversy, which resulted in the announcement that the painting would be stored indefinitely in the basement rather than be put on display as had been planned. Queenie earned worldwide acclaim with her distinct and influential artworks. In an interview towards the end of her life she reminded us that the only word she had ever learnt to read and write was her own name, as it was required to sign her paintings. Yet she was, in her lifetime and is still to this day, recognized as a spiritual and cultural icon, whose commitment to art has left an indelible impact on Australian history and culture.

ARTIST CV
Market Analysis
MARKET ANALYSIS 

While it is possible that she made artworks earlier, the first recorded painting by Queenie McKenzie that has been offered at sale was a small, 60 x 80 cm untitled work created for Waringarri Arts in 1986, its first year of operation. Few works painted in the 1980s have come up for sale and these would have all been relatively small with simple imagery painted during brief visits to Kununurra or collected on visits to Warmun by Joel Smoker, the art coordinator at the time.

Queenie only began painting larger works from the beginning of the 1990s and, as would be expected, the bigger the canvas and the more colourful and complex her works, the higher their prices when offered for sale (regardless of the source provenance). Deserving of her name, Queenie was an impressive, upright, and open person who took care with her preparation and could mix the four basic ochres into an array of up to 12 different colours. Her paintings have generally lasted in good condition over time (other than those in which the lime content of the white ochre has affected the adherence of her characteristic white dotted borders).

The majority of her best results, including her eight highest, have been for large works produced between 1993 and 1996 with her record standing at the $102,000, paid for Power Places-Texas Downs Country 1996, a canvas measuring 163 x 202 cm sold at Lawson-Menzies in November 2007 (Lot 49). The most significant failure of a major painting occurred in 2008 when Limestone Hills Near Texas Downs 1994, a 120 x 180 cm work, remained unsold after having been offered by Lawson~Menzies with a presale estimate of $75,000 - 85,000. The work which was originally sold through the same auction house in May 2004, had been purchased for $94,750 (Lot 39). This still stands as the artist’s second highest result to date.

Interest in Queenie’s work spiked in 2000 when 24 of the 27 works on offer sold. In fact, by the end of that year her career clearance rate was a phenomenal 92%. The success of these small works continued despite the clearance rate dropping to 75% by the end of 2006.  Between 2000 and 2006 the average price of her 60 x 90 cm works steadily rose from $7,188 to $10,714 while 90 x 120 cm works doubled on average from $13,150 to $25,200. Larger works also grew strongly in value with 120 x 150 cm works rising on average from $18,213 to $33,600. The values of her paintings have been on a slow decline since that time.

Since they first appeared at auction in 1996, the total number of paintings presented have been considerable with 147 sold of the 240 offered. In spite of a very poor year in 2012 when only 3 of the 9 works on offer sold, she still has a very healthy 61% clearance rate. However her works on paper have not fared half as well. 

Queenie's higher than average success rate of 73% during 2015 belied the fact that prices for her larger works have dropped in recent years and are at least 25% down on their former values. She remains a sought after artist, 2017 bringing a clearance rate of over 70%. Among the 11 works sold that year was Dreaming Places, a wonderful 200 x 160 cm work on canvas that posted the artists 5th highest result at $54,600 (sold through CooeeArt MarketPlace (lot 39))

The majority of Queenie McKenzie’s paintings are, however, small and remain affordable enough to grace the collection of those with limited financial resources who would like to own a work by the most important of all female Kimberley artists. Her larger works are harder to find, and they appear less frequently at auction. In the future they are sure to rise in value once more, as they are increasingly recognised as blue chip investments.

Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments.
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