Geoffrey Bardon

Who was Geoffrey Bardon?

Geoffrey Robert Bardon AM was an Australian school teacher who was instrumental in creating the Aboriginal art of the Western Desert movement, and in bringing Australian indigenous art to the attention of the world.

Bardon studied law for three years at the University of Sydney, before changing to study art education at the National Art School in Sydney, graduating in 1965. He taught art at various New South Wales country high schools before taking up a posting in 1971 to teach at the primary school at Papunya, a remote Aboriginal settlement 250 km west of Alice Springs.

While he only stayed 18 months, defeated in the end by a hostile white authority, his legacy saw the beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement.

After encouraging the children to record their sand patterns in paint, he went on to encourage the adult men of the community to paint their Honey Ant Dreaming on the school wall, preserving their traditional Dreamings, or Tjukurpa, and stories in paint. Eric Michaels comments on this in his essay "Bad Aboriginal Art",

Bardon, however, claimed non-intervention. Michaels went further to say that arguably the choice of materials was also an influencing factor.