21 November - 21 March 2025
THE HICKS COLLECTION: EMILY KAM KNGWARRAY
We are delighted to announce our next New York exhibition, The Hicks Collection: Eleven Exceptional Works By EMILY KAM KNGWARRAY, an extraordinary private collection of significant paintings by Australia’s most celebrated contemporary artist.
Meticulously assembled under the guidance of renowned Australian gallerist William Mora, each work was selected for its exceptional quality, impeccable provenance, and to represent the distinct phases of Emily’s oeuvre in her short, yet remarkable career as an artist.
A revered Indigenous Australian elder who rarely left her ancestral Country, Emily was an innovative painter whose diverse and prolific output between 1989 and her death in 1996 prompted art historians, curators, and critics to question the relationship between International Modernism and Central Desert painting.
Emily’s work was first presented internationally at the Australian Pavilion of the 47th Biennale di Venezia in 1997 and since then has gained immense critical stature within the broader context of contemporary painting.
Twenty years later, her work returned to the Biennale di Venezia as a celebrated feature of All the World’s Futures, curated by the late Okwui Enwezor.
In 2021, D’Lan Contemporary partnered with Gagosian to present Emily’s first solo exhibition in Paris. Last year, D’Lan Contemporary presented a solo exhibition of Emily’s paintings at Frieze Masters, London — the first Indigenous Australian ever to be featured. Later in 2023, the National Gallery of Australia launch her third major retrospective, which will travel to Tate Modern, London in July 2025.
And, in June 2025, D’Lan Contemporary, in collaboration with Pace gallery, London, will present a solo exhibition of works by Emily Kam Kngwarray, complementing the retrospective at Tate Modern.
If you wish to register your interest in the collection, please contact Director + Founder, D’Lan Davidson, to do so at dlan@dlancontemporary.com.au
Installation Views
Emily Kam Kngwarray
Emily Kam Kngwarray was one of Australia's most celebrated artists, whose extraordinary eight-year painting career produced works of remarkable rhythmic complexity and spiritual power. Born at Alhalker on Utopia cattle station in Anmatyerr country, Emily was among the last generation raised without settler influence, developing profound knowledge of land, seasonality, and ceremony. A respected elder and keeper of significant ancestral knowledge, she co-cared for sacred sites, all informing her artistic practice. Beginning painting on canvas in her late seventies after decades of batik-making, Emily's work expressed ritualistic repetition inspired solely by Alhalker—her physical and spiritual home. Her various styles evolved rapidly from early batik-influenced layered processes depicting anwerlarr (pencil yam) through glorious fields of dots (1990-92) to her final powerful brushstrokes. Despite her age, years of manual labor and ceremonial performance gave Emily remarkable physical strength, her paintbrush becoming an extension of her powerful body, filling canvases with movement and musicality. Her works—ranging from intricate dotting evoking underground yam growth to bold gestural paintings—achieved international acclaim, with major exhibitions and representation in prestigious collections worldwide, establishing her as a master of contemporary Australian painting.
