Vincent Namatjira has had an unbelieveable year. After receiving an OAM in June, he became the first Indigenous artist to win Australia’s top art award: the Archibald Prize. Now he has released his first artist book, The Royal Tour!

Known for his bold, humorous works in which he inserts self-portraits into famous scenes from Australia’s history, Vincent has established a strong artistic style of inscribing himself and his Aboriginality into tableaus of colonialism. The Royal Tour continues with this, using the British monarchy’s various visits to Australia as the stage to wrangle with race, politics and our national mythologies. Photographs of Lady Di and Prince Charles climbing Uluru, or The Queen leaning out of a carriage to wave to subjects are painted over with Vincent’s cartoon self, positioning First Nations people at the centre of these historical events.

All the works featured in The Royal Tour were made this year while Vincent spent lockdown in APY land in Central Australia. This PERFECT Christmas present for the art-lover in your life is published by Perimeter Books and costs $40.

An exhibition of The Royal Tour is currently on show at This Is No Fantasy gallery until Saturday, December 19th. Learn more here.

‘The Royal Tour’ is available to purchase now via Perimeter Books – see here for more!