Brunstrom Donation Brings Significant Utopia Artworks to Kluge-Ruhe

Gerald R. (Jerry) and Mary Reid Brunstrom have donated a collection of 33 artworks by Indigenous Australian artists from Utopia to the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia. Situated north of Alice Springs in Australia’s Central Desert, Utopia is the name given to the traditional lands of the Anmatyerre and Alyawarre people. The Brunstrom gift substantially increases the museum’s representation of early artworks from this region.

Mary said, “Kluge-Ruhe will be a wonderful home for these works. For my husband and I, it serves the purpose of placing them in a trusted, professional environment where they can participate in serving the goals that prompted me to represent the artists in the first place.” In addition to her relationship with Kluge-Ruhe, Mary has another Virginia connection. She studied fine arts at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. The Brunstroms lived in Richmond from 1981-84 while Jerry was heading up the design and construction of Massey Coal Terminal (Pier IX) at Newport News. Mary is originally from the town of Mackay on the Queensland Coast in Australia, while Jerry grew up in Washington State. Jerry Brunstrom sadly passed away in November 2023.

This significant collection of art from Utopia was amassed by Mary Brunstrom through the Austral Gallery, which she founded in St. Louis in 1988 and directed until it closed in 2000. Austral Gallery was among the first galleries to introduce work by contemporary Australian artists, including Aboriginal artists, to audiences in the U.S.

Thanks to Brunstrom’s vision, Austral Gallery became a leader in the field. In 1988, she held her first exhibition, Time Before Time: Aboriginal Art of Australia, which coincided with the Asia Society’s groundbreaking exhibition, Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia, in New York City. Brunstrom arranged for the celebrated Aboriginal artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri to travel to St. Louis and then to New York for the respective exhibitions. Brunstrom went on to collaborate with New York-based curator Nina Felshin on the exhibition Utopia Body Paint: Art from Australia’s Central Desert, which travelled to twelve venues in North America, including the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut; the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Quebec, Canada; and the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA) at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri.

In 1992-93, Brunstrom organized a mural project for a 40-foot wall at the entrance pavilion to the Australian exhibit at the Kansas City Zoo. The image was based on paintings by Utopia artists Gloria Tamerre Petyarre and Ronnie Price Mpetyane. Gloria is recognized for her ability to convey her contemporary vision in expressive, large-scale paintings that now reside in influential collections worldwide. Her husband, Ronnie, started painting men's stories in 1989. Both artists travelled to Kansas City to work on the mural, which won the Excellence of Art in Architecture Award given by the American Institute of Architects, Kansas City Chapter in 1994. John W. Kluge then acquired the original paintings for his collection.

Kluge-Ruhe director Margo Smith recalls Mary Reid Brunstrom as one of the first people she met when she began working with Kluge’s collection. “Mary worked tirelessly to place important First Nations Australian art in major museums and, through a number of innovative projects, to increase its visibility in the United States.”

The Brunstrom gift includes a group of 23 small-scale acrylic paintings. They were acquired by Rodney Gooch for his personal collection between 1986-1990 while he was working as an art advisor based in Alice Springs, commissioning and marketing artists’ work through the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA). Gooch worked with Anmatyerre, Eastern Alyawarre, and Alyawarre artists for over fifteen years until his untimely death in 2002. A group of six acrylic paintings on 8 x 10 inch board painted in 1989 by senior Utopia women, working side by side and sharing their paint pots, stand out as jewel-like images. The painting by Emily Kam Kngwarray—who later achieved international acclaim for her expansive, sumptuously textured images of Country—anticipates future directions in theme and style that would come to characterize her widely appreciated art. Among the first half dozen paintings that the artist produced, this diminutive piece is a significant addition to Kluge-Ruhe’s holdings of her works. Kngwarray is the subject of a retrospective at the Tate Modern scheduled to open in 2025.

Referring to her purchase of these paintings from Rodney Gooch, Brunstrom commented: “The collection meant a great deal to Rodney. He handled the works like precious objects that had meaning for him. Although he made no stipulation that the collection should remain intact, I know that Rodney would have been gratified that Kluge-Ruhe has made it possible for the works to remain together in perpetuity and to serve the purpose of education, scholarship and exhibition.” The rest of Rodney Gooch’s personal collection was given to the Flinders University Art Museum in Adelaide, South Australia in 2002.

Kluge-Ruhe curator Eleanore Neumann said: “The incredible group of artworks given by Gerald and Mary Reid Brunstrom provide vital context to the large-scale works from Utopia that John W. Kluge collected after 1990, which is especially important for our research and teaching here at the University of Virginia.” The prints also significantly expand and complement the works from Utopia currently in Kluge-Ruhe’s collection. Altogether, this gift presents an extraordinary snapshot of the emergent painting movement at Utopia.

THE KLUGE-RUHE ABORIGINAL ART COLLECTION IS THE ONLY MUSEUM OUTSIDE OF AUSTRALIA DEDICATED TO THE EXHIBITION AND STUDY OF INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN ART.

OUR VISION: A world in which Indigenous peoples are listened to, and their arts and cultures are honored and celebrated.

OUR MISSION: To expand knowledge and understanding of Indigenous Australian arts and cultures to cultivate greater appreciation of human diversity and creativity.