Mary Star of the Sea - Edmund Campion

Karel Kupka’s beautiful Madonna in the Darwin cathedral expresses his profound appreciation of Aboriginal culture.

People are talking about Mercy Sister Marie Farrell’s new book, She Who Believed: Australian Images of Mary. A renowned expert on the theology of Mary and her place in the Christian story, Sister Farrell has collected her favourite images of Our Lady to make a beautiful book of them. It is a powerful aid to meditation.

There are statues from the cathedrals in Hobart and Brisbane and Townsville. Others come from Cessnock, NSW, and Inglewood and Canungra in Queensland. There are contemporary paintings from a private collection and a computer-generated Mary, Help of Christians. Other paintings are found in Toowoomba and the Catholic Institute of Sydney. Indigenous-themed art comes from Wadeye and Daly River in the Northern Territory and from Moree and Bowraville in NSW.

In her introduction to the book, Sister Farrell nominates three classes of images that make up her collection. They are either liturgical, from churches and cathedrals, or Indigenous, by Aboriginal artists, or contemporary, set in present-day contexts. This book is not meant to be a catalogue of all Australian images of Mary, nor even a set of the best images. Here are simply Sister Farrell’s own favourites, ones she has seen and loved in her travels round Australia.

One omission that will puzzle some readers is the Aboriginal Madonna in St Mary’s Star of the Sea Cathedral, Darwin, because for many people this particular Madonna has become a great favourite. It has appeared in countless Catholic newspapers and journals and takes the place of honour in St Vincent’s Church, Redfern, the late Fr Ted Kennedy’s Aboriginal-friendly church. A few years ago the Orthodox Church used it as the model for a medallion honouring the Mother of God. About the same time, Father Terry Bell, Catholic Mission national director, took a print to an international directors’ meeting in France, as the Australian representative of Marian art. Prints are still available at the Darwin cathedral (price $25 each).

The most noticeable thing about this painting is the pose of Mother and Child. Centuries of Christian art had placed Christ in the lap of his mother, but here she carries him on her shoulder, the way women from the Tiwi Islands and Daly River carried their children. One hand holds his ankle, the other presses his hip to her body, while he balances himself with a hand on her head. Both are dressed in bright white smocks scalloped at the edges with recognisable Aboriginal designs.

The artist who painted this Madonna was one of those remarkable people the Northern Territory has always attracted. Karel Kupka came from an artistic Czech family who sent him, as a youth, on trips to Paris to experience the art world there. After World War II, when his country was absorbed into Stalin’s empire, he moved to Paris permanently. There he discovered small collections of Australian Aboriginal art that fascinated him. They seemed to speak in a primordial voice from the beginnings of human art itself. He must learn more.

Thus, in the mid-1950s, he came to the Northern Territory commissioned to build a collection of bark paintings and other art objects for a Swiss museum. He was a very respectful collector, spending weeks and even months at camp sites conversing with the artists and learning his way into their cultures. A book he wrote on his experience has become a primary document in the study of Indigenous art.

Seeking permission to visit Catholic missions, Kupka got to know clergy of the cathedral parish, who suggested he try a painting of the Madonna. They gave him the use of a schoolroom, where he hung his art collection and commenced to paint. He told the priests his Mary was an amalgam of different Northern Territory types; later, some said she was a woman he had loved. Whatever—the priests were delighted.

But what of the background to the painting? Kupka tried a variety of tropical landscapes with ghost gums and pandanus palms, none of which satisfied him. Yarning with him in the studio one day, however, a cathedral priest suddenly saw the solution. Pointing to the bark paintings on the walls, he said, ‘Karel, you have the material for your background right here.’ Yes.

Kupka copied into the painting clan designs from across Northern Australia. It was as if the great collector, who would introduce Aboriginal art to thousands of Europeans, was putting his own discreet signature on the Darwin cathedral Madonna.