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Minnie Pwerle (also Minnie Purla or Minnie Motorcar Apwerl;〔 born between 1910 and 1922 – 18 March 2006) was an Australian Aboriginal artist. She came from Utopia, Northern Territory (''Unupurna'' in local language), a cattle station in the Sandover area of Central Australia northeast of Alice Springs. Minnie began painting in 2000 at about the age of 80, and her pictures soon became popular and sought-after works of contemporary Indigenous Australian art. In the years after she took up painting on canvas, until she died in 2006, Minnie's works were exhibited around Australia and collected by major galleries, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Queensland Art Gallery. With popularity came pressure from those keen to acquire her work. She was allegedly "kidnapped" by people who wanted her to paint for them, and there have been media reports of her work being forged. Minnie's work is often compared with that of her sister-in-law Emily Kame Kngwarreye, who also came from the Sandover and took up acrylic painting late in life. Minnie's daughter, Barbara Weir, is a respected artist in her own right. ==Personal life== Minnie was born in the early 20th century near Utopia, Northern Territory, north-east of Alice Springs, Northern Territory.〔 Utopia was a cattle station that was returned to Indigenous ownership in the late 1970s. It is part of a broader region known as the Sandover, containing about 20 Indigenous outstations and centred on the Sandover River. Minnie was one of the traditional owners of Utopia station recognised in the 1980 Indigenous land claim made over the property;〔 her particular country was known as Atnwengerrp.〔 ''Pwerle'' (in the Anmatyerre language) or ''Apwerle'' (in Alyawarr) is a skin name, one of 16 used to denote the subsections or subgroups in the kinship system of central Australian Indigenous people. These names define kinship relationships that influence preferred marriage partners, and may be associated with particular totems. Although they may be used as terms of address, they are not surnames in the sense used by Europeans. Thus "Minnie" is the element of the artist's name that is specifically hers. Estimates of Minnie's birthdate vary widely. The National Gallery of Victoria estimates around 1915;〔 Birnberg's biographical survey of Indigenous artists from central Australia gives a birth date of around 1920; ''The new McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art'' suggests around 1922; Elizabeth Fortescue's biographical essay in ''Art of Utopia'' offers a range between 1910 and 1920. The uncertainty arises because Indigenous Australians often estimate dates of birth by comparison with other events, especially for those born before contact with European Australians. Minnie was one of six children, and had three sisters: Molly, born around 1920, Emily, born around 1922, and Galya, born in the 1930s.〔 She was of the Anmatyerre and Alyawarre Aboriginal language groups.〔〔 In about 1945, Minnie had an affair with a married man, Jack Weir, described by one source as a pastoral station owner,〔 by a second as "an Irish Australian man who owned a cattle run called Bundy River Station", and by another as an Irish "stockman". A relationship such as that between Minnie and Weir was illegal, and the pair were jailed; Weir died shortly after his release.〔 Minnie had a child from their liaison, who was partly raised by Minnie's sister-in-law, artist Emily Kngwarreye,〔 and became prominent Indigenous artist Barbara Weir. Barbara Weir was one of the Stolen Generations. At about the age of nine, she was forcibly taken from her family, who believed she had then been killed. The family were reunited in the late 1960s, but Barbara did not form a close bond with Minnie. Barbara married Mervyn Torres, and as of 2000 had six children and thirteen grandchildren.〔〔 Minnie went on to have six further children with her husband "Motorcar" Jim Ngala,〔 including Aileen, Betty, Raymond and Dora Mpetyane, and two others who by 2010 had died. Her grandchildren include Fred Torres, who founded private art gallery DACOU in 1993, and artist Teresa Purla (or Pwerle). Minnie began painting in late 1999〔 or 2000,〔 when she was almost 80. When asked why she had not begun earlier (painting and batik works had been created at Utopia for over 20 years), her daughter Barbara Weir reported Minnie's answer as being that "no-one had asked her". By the 2000s, she was reported as living at Alparra, the largest of Utopia's communities, or at Urultja (also Irrultja, again in the Sandover region).〔 Sprightly and outgoing, even in her eighties she could outrun younger women chasing goannas for bushfood, and she continued to create art works until two days before her death on 18 March 2006.〔〔 She was outlived by all her sisters except Maggie Pwerle, mother of artists Gloria and Kathleen Petyarre (or Pitjara).〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Minnie Pwerle」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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