JACK DALE

Though they met briefly in the late 1980s, it was not until April 1997 that Jack Dale began painting and recording his cultural stories with the assistance of Melbourne art entrepreneur and publisher, Neil McLeod. McLeod began his association with artists of the Kimberley during projects in the region as early as 1977 when he first recorded and photographed ceremonies, the manufacture of artefacts and traditional food gathering.

In the late 1990s, Dale participated in a number of group exhibitions at Coo-ee Aboriginal Art, Sydney, as well as Michel Sourgnes Fine Art, Brisbane during 2001 and 2002. These were followed in quick succession by no less than seven solo exhibitions between 2001 and 2006, all organised through Neil McLeod. Amongst the venues were Flinders Lane and Vivien Anderson Gallery in Melbourne, Kintolai Gallery in Adelaide, Coo-ee Gallery in Sydney, and Japingka Gallery in Fremantle.

The works included in these exhibitions were created during workshops conducted at Dale’s home in Derby. Several times each year McLeod would drive from Melbourne to the Kimberley with art materials and equipment for workshops that could last up to a month in duration. His absence from the Kimberley for extended periods enabled the owners of a Perth gallery to claim they had signed Dale to an exclusive contract and to demand that McLeod hand over all of the paintings in his possession to the artist’s ‘new agents'. When the works Dale produced for them proved to be inferior, they insisted that those created for McLeod could not be in the artist’s own hand and called the fraud squad. Confronted by police in Derby, the old man, quite naturally afraid, made no secret about receiving appropriate family assistance. Works were confiscated from his exhibition at Japingka Gallery and sent to anthropologist Kevin Shaw who concluded, as did others who visited Derby to watch Dale paint, that the venerated old artist had no case to answer. The confiscated paintings were returned. The 'exclusive' contract with the Perth Gallery was deemed to be invalid and Dale once more resumed painting for McLeod.

© Adrian Newstead