Paper short abstract:

Baldwin Spencer is recognised as one of the great collectors of Australian Aboriginal 'art.' However because he is often positioned as an archetypal evolutionist his role in the recognition of Aboriginal art is devalued. To the contrary I argue he was a significant actor in a time of category change

Paper long abstract:

Baldwin Spencer (1860-1929) Professor of Biology at Melbourne University and director of the National Museum of Victoria is recognised as one of the great collectors of Australian Aboriginal art. He was trained as an artist and was a sponsor of the Heidelberg School of Australian impressionists. His writings, photographs and collections had an impact on early Australian modernism. His collection of bark paintings from Oenpelli played a major role in the recognition of Aboriginal art. However because he is often positioned as an archetypal evolutionist his role in the recognition of Aboriginal art has been downplayed. As a theorist his strongest influences were Tylor and Fraser but as a pioneer of fieldwork methods with his colleague Frances Gillen his ethnography challenged the received categories. In this paper I reflect on the categories he employs and his descriptive vocabulary and show the ways in which his writing about art changed over time. I argue that the prevailing critique of Spencer fails to understand the historical context of his research and collecting and a trajectory of change in which he had considerable agency.