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An Aboriginal painting that has been missing for more than a decade is being returned to a remote community in central Australia.
The painting once hung in a health centre at Kintore, about 530 kilometres west of Alice Springs, but disappeared in the early 1990s.
It was rediscovered last month at a Melbourne auction house as part of an art collection bequeathed to Columbia University from the estate of American billionaire John W. Kluge.
Indigenous art specialist Shaun Dennison says the painting had been due to be auctioned but the university is now giving it back to the people of Kintore.
"We felt the fact that the health service had contacted us, that it showed the importance culturally of the painting and the desire to have the painting returned," he said.
"We felt that Columbia University would be open to that.
"They saw the fact that it was returning to the homeland was more important than putting it up for sale and receiving some proceeds.
"They were very amenable to the whole process and I am very happy that they were."
John Keane was working in Kintore in early 1985 as acting manager of the health clinic and says he commissioned the painting to celebrate the return of local people to their country.
He is now an independent Aboriginal art consultant living in Melbourne.
He was pivotal in having the painting returned after being told it was going to auction.
He says it is rare that a painting of such historical significance is returned to Aboriginal people, and everyone is happy the university withdrew it from auction.
"It is great," he said.
"It is a really significant painting and I think it was done at a time of real optimism, when Pintubi people had left Papunya and returned to their country.
"It sort of has all that kind of optimistic feel to it."
Topics: visual-art, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, regional, kintore-0872, alice-springs-0870, melbourne-3000
Source: www.abc.net.au
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