Faces of Exile - Jacob stengle catalogue

Jacob Stengle

Faces of Exile 3rd - 24th February 2018

Presented by Cooee Art Gallery

An Angel appears over Nazi gas chamber (detail)

Jacob Stengle Adrian Newstead OAM Founding Director, Coee Art Gallery

Jacob Stengle was born in Renmark, South Australia, in 1954. His mother was a Ngurrindjeri woman of the Tangani people and his maternal grandfather was Milerum (Clarence Long), one of the last Ngarrindjeri people to be brought up in a bush camp, away from Europeans. His Czech (Jewish) father, Jakob, escaped to Genoa in Italy and then on to Australia after witnessing his brother Alexander’s death at the hands of the Nazis. Together Jakob and Harriet took seasonal work in the Inman Valley, near Victor Harbor in South Australia while providing for their four children. At the time the children were ‘taken away’, Jacob was 3 years of age, his younger brother Alexander was 2 and his elder sister Margaret was 10. The three were sent to live in the United Aborigines Mission, the Colebrook Home, in Eden Hills, while the younger baby boy, Larry, was sent to the horrendous Mount Barker Children’s Home. None of the children ever saw their mother again. Having done her best to gain access to her children, she died the year after of a broken heart.

By the time Jacob and his sister were sent to Colebrook it was run down and in urgent need of repairs. It was half hidden by a wilderness of trees and shrubs, the roof was rusty, with peeling paint, broken chairs, and the toilets were in disrepair and unhygienic. With the departure of the original Sisters and many changes of staff, it was a most unsettling place. After some time it was however cleaned up and improved with the help of the government, locals and residents. Amongst the children that Jacob grew up with there were the singer songwriter, Yami Lester, Lois (Lowitja) O’Donoghue, and the actor Steve Dodd.

From an early age Jacob showed a great talent for visual art and immersed himself in it as a means of escaping the harsh realities of life.

“Those important years of growing up in the Home left me with a long-lasting memories and impressions, that still impact on my life and outlook today” he recalls. “I would never like to see or have a child grown up in those circumstances and suffer like I did”.

Fortunately, one of the superintendents was a practicing artist and encouraged his passion for art. He first used oil paints when at high school and graduated to a variety of other mediums.

When 15 years old, Jacob was kicked out of the children’s home for refusing to attend church. He began a long period as an itinerant drifter, travelling in an attempt to find his roots. To support himself he painted and, by his mid twenties, was able to paint almost full time. Wherever he travelled across Australia he immersed himself in art circles. He began interpreting Ngurrindjeri myths in his paintings after a chance meeting with the London born artist Ainslie Roberts. Roberts, who migrated to Australia in 1922 and subsequently settled in Adelaide, was best known for his interpretations of Aboriginal legends in his Dreamtime books, written in collaboration with ethnologist/anthropologist Charles Mountford.

Through this chance meeting Stengle and Roberts went on to develop a lifelong friendship.

A series of personal tragedies and an introverted personality sent the ‘loner’ into a spiral of alcohol abuse.

He lost his daughter Bridgette to an undiagnosed heart condition when only in her twenties. Then, just a few years later his son Jack died from a heroin overdose, again in his twenties. Jacob took on Jack’s son Jacob Jr. who was just 5 years old and raised him as his own, while still continuing to practice his art. But in 2012 the tragic death of Jacob Jr. in a car accident at just 16 years of age sent Jacob into a spiralling depression and the darkest depths of alcoholism. This was to see him hospitalised in December 2012, where a heart condition caused by years of excessive drinking was revealed. On leaving hospital in January 2013 he gave up the drink and has been a prolific and indefatigable artist ever since.

His solo exhibition at Cooee Art Gallery is just his second solo exhibition since that time. His first, Karumapuli (Boobook Owl), at the Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute drew upon his personal and cultural identity, the Stolen Generations and explorations into European visual art history.

In this current exhibition, Jacob draws upon two quite different themes. The first is a response to his father’s Jewish heritage and the parallel between the treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia and Jews in Europe. Each group endured a ‘holocaust’ during which they were enchained, murdered, vilified and made to carry identity cards.

A second theme, which is however linked to the first, is the fantasy world into which children, suffering the worst forms of privation and institutionalisation manage to escape through their fertile imaginations and dreams.

Jacob’s memories of all those endearing characters with whom he grew up as a child is a poignant reminder of the power of the human spirit to transcend and lift itself above horror and the most terrible personal circumstance.

His works have been the subject of five solo exhibitions, the most recent at Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute in Adelaide in 2015. Individual works have been included in the National Aboriginal and TSI Art Awards at MAGNT in Darwin and several thematic touring exhibitions.

Jacob’s works are held in the permanent collections of Parliament House, Canberra, the South Australian Museum, Flinders University Gallery, Australian National Maritime Museum, The National Gallery of Australia, Holmes a Court collection and the Australian Embassy in South Korea.

Portrait of Adrian Newstead, 2017 oil on canvas 46 x 46 cm

Reading of Document, 2017 oil on canvas 138 x 102 cm

An Angel Appears, 2017 oil on canvas 90 x 90 cm

Moses, 2017 oil on canvas 184 x 154 cm

Top Left: Jewish Doll in Nazi Concentration Camp Top Right: An Angel appears over Nazi Gas Chamber Bottom Left: Beware Never Again Bottom Right: Jewish Child in Nazi Concentration Camp each work pen and ink wash on paper 21 x 30 cm

Bush Clearing Party After Church Sunday, 2017 watercolour on paper 30 x 41.5 cm

Exiled off Own Land, 2017 watercolour on paper 30 x 41.5 cm

My Exemption Card, 2017 charcoal, ink wash and glue on paper 65 x 69 cm

During the Nazi regime, those of Jewish descent were subjected to persecution, and required to wear identification. Likewise, in Australia, the Government required Aboriginal people to carry an ‘Exemption Card’ when they walked or traveled beyond their place of residence – in their own country!

Jewish Concentration Camp Prisoners II, 2017 charcoal, ink, oil pastel on paper 69 x 65 cm

Jewish Concentration Camp Prisoners I, 2017 charcoal, ink, oil pastel on paper 69 x 65 cm

Jewish Story I - VI, 2017 oil on canvas board 31 x 41 cm each

Nazi Concentration Camp, 2017 tea, coffee, pen and ink on paper 29.5 x 42 cm

Jewish Mother and Baby in Nazi Camp, 2017 tea, coffee, pen and ink on paper 29.5 x 42 cm

Stolen Generation: Colebrook Children’s Home Series

The Night Visit, 2017 oil on canvas 61 x 61 cm

Going home after swimming all day at the ‘9-footer’ waterhole. A kangaroo with his emu ‘best man’ wants to propose to our blow-up ‘Nessie’.

Heading Home: The ‘Proposal’, 2017 oil on canvas 183 x 153 cm

Feathers, 2017 oil on canvas 122 x 122 cm

The Mexican Standoff, 2017 oil on canvas 61 x 51 cm

Kids Returning From The 9 Footer, 2017 oil on canvas 61 x 51 cm

Daisy Chains, 2017 oil on canvas 182 x 152 cm

Moana, 2017 oil on canvas 183 x 153 cm

The ‘9 Footer’, 2017 oil on canvas 183 x 153 cm

The 9 Footer - Swimming, 2017 oil on linen 61 x 61 cm

The Orchid Hunter, 2017 oil on canvas 61 x 51 cm

Periwinkle Gathering, 2017 oil on canvas 90 x 90 cm

Don’t Lose Your Marbles, 2017 oil on board 36 x 28 cm

Top Left:: Girl with Pigtails Top Centre: Geoffrey Top Left: Elvis Bottom Left:: Doris Bottom Centre: Timmy Bottom Left: Archibald each work: 2017 Tea, Coffee, Pen and Ink on Paper 21 x 30 cm each

Ngurrunderi Overlooking the Beach, 2017 oil on canvas 84 x 61 cm

Jacob Stengle - Curriculum Vitae

Solo Exhibitions: 2018 Faces of Exile, Cooee Art Gallery, Sydney, NSW 2015 Kuramapuli, Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA 2014 Jacob Stengle, New Works on Paper, Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA 1990 Jacob Stengle, Solo Exhibition, Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA 1985 Jacob Stengle Solo Exhibition, Hilton International , Adelaide, SA Selected Group Exhibitions: 2014 Tandanya 25th Anniversary Exhibition, Adelaide Domestic and International airport, SA 2014 Men’s Work, Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA 2011 NAIDOC Exhibition, Adelaide Town Hall, SA 2009 Making Tracks: A Glimpse at Two Decades of Aboriginal Art in South Australia, Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA 1980 Dreamings, Cities throughout USA Awards - Finalist: National Aboriginal Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Westpac Gallery, Melbourne Victoria, Brisbane City Art Gallery & Brisbane Museum, Queensland.

National Heritage Award, Old Parliament House Canberra National Aboriginal Art Award, Museum & Art Gallery Northern Territory, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney NSW, Tandanya Gallery, Adelaide South Australia Collections: Parliament House, Canberra, ACT National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT South Australian Museum, Adelaide, SA Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA Flinders University Gallery, Adelaide, SA Maritime Museum, Sydney, NSW Australian Embassy, South Korea Holmes a Court Collection, WA

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