L Paddy Bedford. Photo: Katie Wilson R Emu Dreaming, 2003
Paddy Bedford: the Gija lawman from Bedford Downs whose paintings were rescued from a rubbish tip
A couple of years before he was born, a group of his Gija relatives were poisoned with strychnine at Bedford Downs Station in the East Kimberley, their bodies burned, in retaliation for the killing of one dairy cow on land that had once been theirs. The station manager responsible was Paddy Quilty, and when the baby arrived shortly afterwards, Quilty gave him his Western name: Paddy. Bedford would later paint the massacre, and when offered the chance to visit Quilty's grave he reportedly declined: "Why should I go see that old bastard?" Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford, also known as Goowoomji, was born around 1922 at Bedford Downs Station, East Kimberley, Western Australia. He died on 14 July 2007.
Bedford worked as a stockman for decades, paid in rations of tea, flour and tobacco. He was at one stage sent to a leprosarium despite not having leprosy. When he married and had children, the children were taken to a mission. He and his family eventually left Bedford Downs after a station manager killed all the camp dogs, moving to the community of Warmun (Turkey Creek). When the 1969 Pastoral Award required equal pay for Indigenous and non-Indigenous workers, station owners sacked their Aboriginal workforce, including Bedford. He spent time on road building before injury forced him onto welfare. Throughout all of this he had been a senior Gija lawman, involved in ceremonial painting all his adult life, adorning himself and others with body paint for ceremony and performance.
Paddy Bedford, installation view, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
In the late 1990s, Jirrawun Arts director Tony Oliver visited a friend in Turkey Creek and happened to look into a darkened room where discarded paintings on cardboard and laminex lay on the floor, bound for the rubbish tip. He was struck by their power and simplicity. The paintings were the work of an old man from Bedford Downs sitting outside. Oliver told Bedford he was a genius and should paint more. Bedford obliged. He began painting on canvas and board in 1998, in his mid-70s. When he received his first payment as an artist he reportedly shouted: "I'm a millionaire!" The first fifteen gouaches he produced that year became the Jirrawun Suite, acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Paddy Bedford, installation view, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
In a career spanning just eight years, Bedford became one of the most significant painters in Australian art. Working in the East Kimberley tradition established by Rover Thomas and Queenie McKenzie, he painted the ngarranggarni (Dreaming) stories of his country alongside accounts of colonial history, including a series addressing the Bedford Downs poisonings. His style evolved from densely patterned ochre panels to expansive black and white canvases with precisely placed colour, marked throughout by what one critic described as "remarkable sparseness" and a "gentle sophistication." Sydney Morning Herald critic John McDonald wrote that if one had to choose a single Indigenous artist to represent the state of Aboriginal art, it would be hard to go past Paddy Bedford. In 2006 he was one of eight Indigenous Australian artists commissioned to create permanent works for the Musée du quai Branly in Paris, and that same year a major retrospective of his work was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. His work is held in the NGA, NGV, AGNSW, AGWA, MCA, the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
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