Tres Mimi

Jimmy Midjawmidjaw (1897-1985) was born on Croker Island, Northern Territory, and he lived some of the time there and the rest in Oenpelli. Midjawmidjaw belonged to the Mirarr clan and formed part of the Kuninkju linguistic group. He had a great deal of experience in ceremonial rituals. His first-known bark painting, done for the anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt, date from 1947, although many of his paintings were collected in the 1960s by curators and collectors like Karel Kupka (1963) or Albert Folch and Eudald Serra (1964-1968). The themes of these paintings were ceremonial rites and witchcraft, with animal and spirit images, and ceremonial body-painting motifs that bore a strong relationship with the techniques used in cave painting. His works are currently exhibited in numerous galleries throughout Australia and museums all over the world.