Julie Dowling Henry

A respected historian, Professor Henry Reynolds is the author of numerous books, including Why weren’t we told? and The other side of the frontier, which have changed the landscape of modern Australian thought regarding its history to include that of Indigenous people. The book he is holding was inherited from his Indigenous father.

‘As an Indigenous woman, I have found Henry’s books and lectures to be inspirational because finally it appeared an Indigenous Australian had a passion to understand the relationship between us as Indigenous and non-Indigenous people living within one country,’ says Julie Dowling. ‘More importantly, his research points out to the average reader that an unblinkered investigation of Australia’s colonial past is fundamentally achievable in Australia today.’

‘My portrait includes the text from one of Henry’s books, Black pioneers, which recounts the words of John Bradley of Liverpool who was appointed as tutor to George Van Dieman, an Aboriginal boy “found” in the Tasmanian bush. In an 1827 letter, Bradley wrote: “I feel much gratified in having had this boy with me, tho’ but a little time, as it confirms me more in the opinion that I have long cherished: that man is on all parts of the globe the same; being a free agent he may mould himself to excellence, or debase himself below the brute, and that education, government and established customs are the principal causes of the distinctions among nations. Let us place indiscriminately all the shades of colour in the human species, in the same climate, allow them the same means for the development of intellect; I apprehend the blacks will keep pace with the whites, for colour neither impairs the muscles nor enervates the mind.” George Van Dieman died that same year, never to achieve the promise his English tutor saw in him.

Dowling is an artist, political activist and writer. She was represented in last year’s Archibald Prize. This portrait of Reynolds is now in the Fine Art Collection, University of Tasmania.