Lin Onus

{{Infobox person

| honorific_prefix =

| name = Lin Onus

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| image_size = 50

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| birth_name = William McLintock Onus

| other_names = Ganadila Number 2, Lynn

| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1948|12|04}}

| birth_place = Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1996|10|23|1948|12|04}}

| death_place = Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

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| known_for = Painting, sculpture, printmaking

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| father = Bill Onus

| spouse =

| children = 3, including Tiriki Onus

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}}

Lin Onus {{post-nominals|country=AUS|AM}} (4 December 1948 – 23 October 1996), born William McLintock Onus and also known as Lin Burralung McLintock Onus, was an Australian artist of Scottish-Aboriginal origins. He was the son of activist Bill Onus.

Early life

William McLintock Onus was born at St. George's Hospital, Kew, Melbourne on 4 December 1948{{cite web | website=The Obituary Page |title= The Visual Arts 1996| date= 25 August 1999 | url=http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Obituary/1996/art.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160405121847/http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Obituary/1996/art.html | archive-date=5 April 2016 | url-status=live | access-date=3 September 2022}} His father William Townsend Onus Jr (Bill), a Yorta Yorta man, became the founder of the Aboriginal Advancement League and was the first Aboriginal JP, dying in 1968, a year after a long campaign bore fruit – the success of the referendum giving the national government responsibility for Aboriginal affairs and including Aboriginal people in the determination of the country's population.{{cite web | title=Lin Onus|first= Adrian |last=Newstead |work= The Age| via=The Koori History Project | url=http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/resources/art/Lin%20Onus.html | access-date=3 September 2022}}

Onus was educated in the 1950s and 1960s at Deepdene Primary School and Balwyn High School in Melbourne, Victoria. He was largely a self-taught urban artist who, after being expelled from Balwyn High School for fighting,{{cite book | last1=Onus | first1=Lin | last2=Neale | first2=Margot | title=Urban Dingo: The Art and Life of Lin Onus, 1948-1996 | publisher=Craftsman House | year=2000 | isbn=978-90-5703-762-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kaZPAAAAMAAJ | access-date=3 September 2022 | pages=14, 117–118, 120, 144|others=Search "Balwyn", "first wife", "daughter", "Rosemary".}} became a mechanic and spray painter,{{Cite web|url=http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/onus-lin/|title=Lin Onus|website=AGNSW collection record|publisher=Art Gallery of New South Wales|access-date=13 April 2016}} before making artefacts for the tourist market with his father's business, Aboriginal Enterprise Novelties.See entries on both son Lin and father William in the Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia (1994), by David Horton, Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, 1994

Career

Onus became a successful painter, sculptor and printmaker.Alan McCulloch, Susan McCulloch and Emily McCulloch Childs, 'Onus, Lin', in McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art (4th edition), Aus Art Editions and The Miegunyah Press, MUP, 2006, p. 127

The works of Onus often involve symbolism from Aboriginal styles of painting, along with recontextualisation of contemporary artistic elements. The images in his works include haunting portrayals of the Barmah red gum forests of his father's ancestral country, and the use of rarrk cross-hatching-based painting style that he learnt (and was given permission to use)Amanda Ladds, [http://www.theblurb.com.au/Issue27/LinOnus.htm 'The Reconciler'] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070627023703/http://www.theblurb.com.au/Issue27/LinOnus.htm |date=27 June 2007 }}, The Blurb, Issue 27 when visiting the Indigenous communities of Maningrida in 1986.

His most famous work, Michael and I are just slipping down to the pub for a minute, has been featured on a postcard, and is a reference to his colleague, artist Michael Eather. The painting is of a dingo riding on the back of a stingray which is meant to symbolise his mother's and father's cultures combining in reconciliation. The image of the wave is borrowed from The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1832), by Japanese printmaker, Katsushika Hokusai.

Honours and awards

1993: Member of the Order of Australia "for service to the arts as a painter and sculptor and to the promotion of aboriginal artists and their work"[https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/874725 Lin Onus file] on honours.pmc.gov. Retrieved 5 March 2013.
1994: National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Art Award, for Barmah Forest{{cite web| url=https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22publications%2Ftabledpapers%2F1787%22| via= Parlinfo|date= 1996| publisher = Commonwealth of Australia| title=Australian Heritage Commission Annual Report 1995-96|issn= 0155-1434}} ({{AUD|17,000}}){{cite web| url=https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22media%2Fpressrel%2FAE120%22| website= Parlinfo|date= 15 December 1994| title=Lin Onus wins national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage art award| series=Press release}}
2012: Inducted to the Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll{{cite web | title=William 'Lin' Onus AM | website=First Peoples - State Relations| date=29 September 2019 | url=http://www.firstpeoplesrelations.vic.gov.au/william-lin-onus-am | access-date=10 August 2022}}

Exhibitions

A major retrospective of Onus' work, entitled Urban Dingo: The Art of Lin Onus (Burrinja) 1948-1996, was held at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney in 2000. Curated by Margo Neale and organised by the Queensland Art Gallery, it was developed before his death and staged with the assistance of his family.{{cite web | title=Urban Dingo: The Art of Lin Onus (Burrinja) 1948-1996 - Exhibitions | website=MCA Australia | date=24 November 2000 | url=https://www.mca.com.au/artists-works/exhibitions/urban-dingo-the-art-of-lin-onus-burrinja-1948-1996/ | access-date=10 August 2022}}

Major collections

Art Gallery of New South Wales{{cite web | title=Lin Onus | website=Art Gallery of NSW | url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/onus-lin/ | access-date=10 August 2022}}
Holmes à Court Collection{{cite web|url=http://www.holmesacourtgallery.com.au/collection/index.cfm|title=The Holmes à Court Collection|publisher=Holmes à Court Gallery|access-date=13 January 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080719142455/http://www.holmesacourtgallery.com.au/collection/index.cfm|archive-date=19 July 2008}}

Film

Lin Onus was credited for the sound production on a 1972 film called Blackfire, directed by Bruce McGuinness, which was thought to be the first film made by an Indigenous Australian.{{IMDb title|7933412| Black Fire}}{{cite web | last=Korff | first=Jens | title=Black Fire (Blackfire) (Film) | website=Creative Spirits | date=21 December 2018 | url=https://www.creativespirits.info/resources/movies/black-fire-blackfire | access-date=3 November 2022}}{{cite book|editor= Warren Bebbington|title=The Oxford Companion to Australian Music |year=1997 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-553432-8 }} However, the discovery of a short film made by Lin's father Bill made in 1946 in 2021 has put this claim into doubt.

Death and legacy

Lin Onus died suddenly of a heart attack on 23 October 1996 at the age of 47 in Melbourne.{{cite web | url=https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/the-screen-guide/t/lin-onus---bridge-between-cultures-1998/14519/ | title=Lin Onus - Bridge Between Cultures (1998) - the Screen Guide - Screen Australia }} He was cremated and his ashes scattered at the Cummeragunja cemetery on the NSW-Victorian border.

The youth award in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Art Award was renamed the Lin Onus Youth Prize from 1998.{{cite web | title=Alick Tipoti | website=The Australian Art Network | date=11 July 2013 | url=https://australianartnetwork.com.au/category/indigenous-artists/alick-tipoti/ | access-date=9 August 2022}}{{cite web| url=https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22media/pressrel/1V505%22| website= Parlinfo| author-link= Robert Hill (Australian politician)| first= Robert |last=Hill|date= 8 April 1998| title=Australian Heritage Commission sponsoring major indigenous art awards| series=Press release|access-date=9 August 2022}}

=Posthumous apology=

On 8 December 2000, as part of Aboriginal reconciliation, Peter Bond, Principal of Balwyn High School, at the school presentation night at Dallas Brooks Hall, issued a posthumous apology to Lin Onus for being expelled from Balwyn High School in the early 1960s."School sorry, 40 years on" Herald Sun (Australia) newspaper, page 8, Friday, 8 December 2000]

Family

Onus was married twice, first to Rosemary Smith and then to Jo Kloster. He had a son with Rosemary and a daughter, and with Jo he had a son, Tiriki Onus.

Tiriki became an opera singer{{cite web | last=Harford | first=Sonia | title=Indigenous artist Tiriki Onus intent on carving own identity | website=The Sydney Morning Herald | date=13 November 2014 | url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/indigenous-artist-tiriki-onus-intent-on-carving-own-identity-20141113-11lshy.html | access-date=16 August 2021}} and filmmaker. He made a documentary film about his grandfather Bill Onus, released in 2021, called Ablaze, in which he describes his discovery of a 1946 short film made by him.{{cite web | title=Documentary Ablaze reveals civil rights leader Bill Onus might have been the first Aboriginal filmmaker |first=Hannah |last=Reich |series=The Screen Show| website=ABC News |publisher = Australian Broadcasting Corporation | date=13 August 2021 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-13/ablaze-documentary-bill-onus-aboriginal-filmmaker/100337500 | access-date=16 August 2021}} Tiriki, a bass baritone singer, is ({{as of|2021|lc=yes}}) head of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development at the Victorian College of the Arts. His first role in opera was as his grandfather, in the premiere of Deborah Cheetham’s Pecan Summer in 2010 at Mooroopna.{{cite web | title=Was activist Bill Onus our first Aboriginal film-maker? | website=The Lighthouse| publisher= Macquarie University | date=2 August 2021 | url=https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/july-2021/was-activist-bill-onus-our-first-aboriginal-film-maker | access-date=19 November 2022}}