True North: The Story Of Mary And Elizabeth Durack
by Brenda Niall /
2012 / English / EPUB
5.5 MB Download
Acclaimed biographer Brenda Niall specialises in chronicling the life of Australian artists. In True North, she tells the complex stories of two sisters whose work and stories are inextricably bound with the developing story of our nation, and in the places where colonial and indigenous Australia intersect. Mary and Elizabeth Durack were the daughters of a Kimberley cattle empire; though they mostly grew up in Perth, it was their time on their father’s cattle station in the far north of Western Australia that captured their imaginations and spawned their artistic careers. Mary was a writer, best known for Kings in Grass Castles; Elizabeth was a painter (sadly, notorious for producing and selling work under an invented Aboriginal persona in her later years). They were both intrigued by the indigenous workers they met on the cattle station (especially the women and children) and saddened by their fate, particularly after the introduction of equal pay paradoxically meant that they all lost their jobs. ‘Given their age and background of pastoralist privilege, they were ahead of their times in having doubts and difficulties,’ says Niall of her subjects. The biographer has pieced together the sisters’ stories – and their relationship – through unlimited access to their diaries, letters and papers. The result is a meticulously researched, intelligently observed book that tells much about a particular place and moment in Australian history, as well as these two extraordinary women.
