Wikipedia

Lin Onus

Lin Onus AM (4 December 1948 – 23 October 1996), born William McLintock Onus and also known as Lin Burralung McLintock Onus, was an Australian artist of Scottish-Aboriginal origins. He was the son of activist Bill Onus.

Lin Onus
Born
William McLintock Onus

(1948-12-04)4 December 1948
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Died23 October 1996(1996-10-23) (aged 47)
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Other namesGanadila Number 2, Lynn
Known forPainting, sculpture, printmaking
Children3, including Tiriki Onus
Parent

Early life edit

William McLintock Onus was born at St. George's Hospital, Kew, Melbourne on 4 December 1948[1] His father William Townsend Onus Jr (Bill), a Yorta Yorta man, became the founder of the Aboriginal Advancement League and was the first Aboriginal JP, dying in 1968, a year after a long campaign bore fruit – the success of the referendum giving the national government responsibility for Aboriginal affairs and including Aboriginal people in the determination of the country's population.[2]

Onus was educated in the 1950s and 1960s at Deepdene Primary School and Balwyn High School in Melbourne, Victoria. He was largely a self-taught urban artist who, after being expelled from Balwyn High School for fighting,[3] became a mechanic and spray painter,[4] before making artefacts for the tourist market with his father's business, Aboriginal Enterprise Novelties.[5]

Career edit

Onus became a successful painter, sculptor and printmaker.[6]

The works of Onus often involve symbolism from Aboriginal styles of painting, along with recontextualisation of contemporary artistic elements. The images in his works include haunting portrayals of the Barmah red gum forests of his father's ancestral country, and the use of rarrk cross-hatching-based painting style that he learnt (and was given permission to use)[7] when visiting the Indigenous communities of Maningrida in 1986.

His most famous work, Michael and I are just slipping down to the pub for a minute, has been featured on a postcard, and is a reference to his colleague, artist Michael Eather. The painting is of a dingo riding on the back of a stingray which is meant to symbolise his mother's and father's cultures combining in reconciliation. The image of the wave is borrowed from The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1832), by Japanese printmaker, Katsushika Hokusai.

Honours and awards edit

Exhibitions edit

A major retrospective of Onus' work, entitled Urban Dingo: The Art of Lin Onus (Burrinja) 1948-1996, was held at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney in 2000. Curated by Margo Neale and organised by the Queensland Art Gallery, it was developed before his death and staged with the assistance of his family.[12]

Major collections edit

Film edit

Lin Onus was credited for the sound production on a 1972 film called Blackfire, directed by Bruce McGuinness, which was thought to be the first film made by an Indigenous Australian.[15][16][17] However, the discovery of a short film made by Lin's father Bill made in 1946 in 2021 has put this claim into doubt.[18]

Death and legacy edit

Lin Onus died suddenly of a heart attack on 23 October 1996 at the age of 47 in Melbourne.[19][1] He was cremated and his ashes scattered at the Cummeragunja cemetery on the NSW-Victorian border.[2]

The youth award in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Art Award was renamed the Lin Onus Youth Prize from 1998.[20][21]

Posthumous apology edit

On 8 December 2000, as part of Aboriginal reconciliation, Peter Bond, Principal of Balwyn High School, at the school presentation night at Dallas Brooks Hall, issued a posthumous apology to Lin Onus for being expelled from Balwyn High School in the early 1960s.[22]

Family edit

Onus was married twice, first to Rosemary Smith and then to Jo Kloster. He had a son with Rosemary and a daughter, and with Jo he had a son, Tiriki Onus.[3][2]

Tiriki became an opera singer[23] and filmmaker. He made a documentary film about his grandfather Bill Onus, released in 2021, called Ablaze, in which he describes his discovery of a 1946 short film made by him.[18] Tiriki, a bass baritone singer, is (as of 2021) head of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development at the Victorian College of the Arts. His first role in opera was as his grandfather, in the premiere of Deborah Cheetham’s Pecan Summer in 2010 at Mooroopna.[24]

References edit

  1. ^ a b "The Visual Arts 1996". The Obituary Page. 25 August 1999. Archived from the original on 5 April 2016. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  2. ^ a b c Newstead, Adrian. "Lin Onus". The Age. Retrieved 3 September 2022 – via The Koori History Project.
  3. ^ a b Onus, Lin; Neale, Margot (2000). Urban Dingo: The Art and Life of Lin Onus, 1948-1996. Search "Balwyn", "first wife", "daughter", "Rosemary". Craftsman House. pp. 14, 117–118, 120, 144. ISBN 978-90-5703-762-7. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  4. ^ "Lin Onus". AGNSW collection record. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 13 April 2016.
  5. ^ See entries on both son Lin and father William in the Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia (1994), by David Horton, Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, 1994
  6. ^ Alan McCulloch, Susan McCulloch and Emily McCulloch Childs, 'Onus, Lin', in McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art (4th edition), Aus Art Editions and The Miegunyah Press, MUP, 2006, p. 127
  7. ^ Amanda Ladds, 'The Reconciler' Archived 27 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine, The Blurb, Issue 27
  8. ^ Lin Onus file on honours.pmc.gov. Retrieved 5 March 2013.
  9. ^ "Australian Heritage Commission Annual Report 1995-96". Commonwealth of Australia. 1996. ISSN 0155-1434 – via Parlinfo.
  10. ^ "Lin Onus wins national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage art award". Parlinfo. Press release. 15 December 1994.
  11. ^ "William 'Lin' Onus AM". First Peoples - State Relations. 29 September 2019. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  12. ^ "Urban Dingo: The Art of Lin Onus (Burrinja) 1948-1996 - Exhibitions". MCA Australia. 24 November 2000. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  13. ^ "Lin Onus". Art Gallery of NSW. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  14. ^ "The Holmes à Court Collection". Holmes à Court Gallery. Archived from the original on 19 July 2008. Retrieved 13 January 2011.
  15. ^ Black Fire at IMDb  
  16. ^ Korff, Jens (21 December 2018). "Black Fire (Blackfire) (Film)". Creative Spirits. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
  17. ^ Warren Bebbington, ed. (1997). The Oxford Companion to Australian Music. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-553432-8.
  18. ^ a b Reich, Hannah (13 August 2021). "Documentary Ablaze reveals civil rights leader Bill Onus might have been the first Aboriginal filmmaker". ABC News. The Screen Show. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 16 August 2021.
  19. ^ "Lin Onus - Bridge Between Cultures (1998) - the Screen Guide - Screen Australia".
  20. ^ "Alick Tipoti". The Australian Art Network. 11 July 2013. Retrieved 9 August 2022.
  21. ^ Hill, Robert (8 April 1998). "Australian Heritage Commission sponsoring major indigenous art awards". Parlinfo. Press release. Retrieved 9 August 2022.
  22. ^ "School sorry, 40 years on" Herald Sun (Australia) newspaper, page 8, Friday, 8 December 2000]
  23. ^ Harford, Sonia (13 November 2014). "Indigenous artist Tiriki Onus intent on carving own identity". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 16 August 2021.
  24. ^ "Was activist Bill Onus our first Aboriginal film-maker?". The Lighthouse. Macquarie University. 2 August 2021. Retrieved 19 November 2022.

Further reading edit

  • Bellamy, Louise 'Onus goes on show', The Age (newspaper), 23 February 2005.
  • Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia, Onus, L., Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, 2001
  • Ladds, Amanda. "The Reconciler", The Blurb, Issue 27
  • McCulloch, Alan; McCulloch, Susan; McCulloch Childs, Emily. "Onus, Lin", in McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art (4th edition), Aus Art Editions and The Miegunyah Press, MUP, 2009
  • McQueen, Humphrey, "Art Indigenous - Onus"
  • Neale, Margo; Onus, Lin. 2000, 'Urban Dingo',The Art and Life of Lin Onus, Queensland Art Gallery and fine Arts Press, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  • Travers, Mary. "Death of Lin Onus", Art Monthly Australia, no. 96, 1996, p. 43

External links edit

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