Hubert Pareroultja

Hubert has been painting watercolours since he was a young boy. He was inspired by his father Reuben Pareroultja, and uncles Otto and Edwin. The three brothers were all members of the first generation of Hermansburg watercolour artists and were all acclaimed, painting in their unique styles. Reuben Pareroultja was signed out by Rex Battarbee in 1951 to be one of ten artists included in the first publication to survey the watercolour movement, Modern Australian Aboriginal Art. Battarbee described a work painted by Reuben in 1945 as revealing ‘the refined and delicate nature of the artist’. Today his son Hubert is also renowned for ethereal landscapes in delicate pastel colour produced through diluted washes. In recent years, Hubert has occasionally painted images dominated by central monoliths, such as Uluru or Gosses Bluff, however his landscapes generally encompass vast panaromic distances animated by lively patterning of vegetation. Hubert was born when Albert Namatjira was at the peak of his fame (Namatjira was awarded the Queen’s Coronation Medal in 1953 and present to Her Majesty in Canberra in the following year). Hubert remembers, as a young boy, watching Albert Namatjira paint. He paints many of the same locations that Albert depicted, in particular Mt Hermansburg, Mt Sonder and many locations in the James Range.