Author talk: Kitty Hauser on Art Mania - Geoffrey Bardon and the Painting Men of Papunya

Discover Art Mania: Geoffrey Bardon and the Painting Men of Papunya, Kitty Hauser’s compelling biography of the young teacher who, through his involvement with Aboriginal artists in the Western Desert in 1971–72, was long credited with setting the Aboriginal art movement in motion. The first biography of Geoffrey Bardon, the book draws on unprecedented access to his archive to explore his complex legacy and the story behind the emergence of the Papunya painting movement.

Kitty Hauser will also explore Geoffrey Bardon’s connections to Bondi and Randwick areas.

About the Author:

Kitty Hauser is a British-born writer and historian based in Sydney, interested in innovative ways of doing history and writing lives using text, images and archives. Her books include Shadow Sites; Bloody Old Britain: O.G.S. Crawford and the Archaeology of Modern Life; and This Is Bacon. Her writing has been published in the London Review of Books, ArtForum, New Left Review and Granta. 

Book Reviews:

‘Geoffrey Bardon was a lightning rod for a forcefield of cultural expression and aspirations he had only the most vestigial understanding of. Hauser examines how this brush with a different cognitive realm both remade and undid him… Art Mania is an engrossing and sensitive appraisal of cross-cultural dissonance, and a welcome addition to the ripple effect of Bardon’s precipitate plunge into the Western Desert sensibility.’ – Kim Mahood

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