Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest person, has asked the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra to remove a painting of her by Aboriginal artist Vincent Namatjira.
It was not immediately clear what prompted Rinehart, a donor to the National Gallery of Australia, to make the request, but it was clear, at least, that Namatjira’s portrait was not the kindest representation of her. Both the guardian and the Sydney Morning Herald used the word “unflattering” to describe the image, which gives her skin a rosy color, exaggerates her chin creases and turns her lips down into a frown.
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The painting is one of nearly two dozen portraits featured in Namatjira’s current retrospective at the museum, which has toured the show from the Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide.
In Australia, Namatjira is well known and much loved. He became the first Indigenous artist to win the Archibald Prize, a prestigious Australian portrait award, in 2020.
Rinehart made her fortune in the mining business and is currently president of Hancock Prospecting. It has periodically made national headlines in Australia for a series of controversies, most notably its decision in 2022 to stop funding a netball team after an Indigenous player asked not to have the Hancock Prospecting logo on her uniform.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, in April, Rinehart personally asked NGA director Nick Mitzevich and NGA president Ryan Stokes to remove Namatjira’s portrait. The museum refused to do so. “The National Gallery welcomes the public to have a dialogue about our collection and exhibitions,” the museum said in a statement to the publication.
The reasons for his request remain unknown, but the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Hancock Prospecting associates complained that the museum was “doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party.” Rinehart, meanwhile, spoke highly of the Chinese government.
Many saw the situation as an example of a billionaire refusing to understand what art should do. No Australian Financial Reviewreporter Mark Di Stefano wrote: “My God, get it. Rinehart seems to want everything that comes with money, power and influence, but without the other bits. She talks non-stop about being a proud Aussie, but she doesn’t dare laugh or to pee, both fundamental elements of said national myth.
