Born in England, 1945, and died in Namibia, September 1988, Andrew Crocker was an son of an Anglo-Irish, Sandhurst-educated army Major and a Russian-born lady with claims of ties to the Russian imperial family.

Andrew was educated at Downside Abbey School and Jesus College, Camridge, where he read Classics.

At Jesus, he was one of the youngest undergraduates and taking his BA aged only 19. Subsequently, he qualified as a Chartered Accountant and Barrister, but pursued neither of these professions, and instead involved himself only briefly in minor-scale family farming at South Petherton Fruit Farm in Somerset, Southwest England.

Ultimately, Andrew’s restless character and broader interests prompted him to emigrate to Australia where he bought land. This he used as a means both of laying down roots and for obtaining Australian citizenship more swiftly, a status which was important for him in Australia, as, with the activities he pursued whilst there, he was swimming against the tide and the accepted political wisdom at a time when championing Aboriginal identity and interests was “not done”. Clearly Andrew might have run the very real risk of becoming an “undesirable alien” for stirring up trouble and been packed off to England, where he still in fact kept a home.

In his adoptive country, Andrew Crocker created the image of a somewhat quixotic Englishman, an identity which he carefully polished with such details as being a life member of Queen’s Tennis Club, London, and playing the ancient royal past-time of real tennis, when he was not farming in Somerset.

Andrew was also lucky enough to live off an unearned income from a family Trust and which allowed him the benefit from a certain freedom of movement and final dedication to the Aborigines and especially the Aboriginal Art of Australia’s bushmen. During the late 1970′s and early 1980′s such beginnings were not easy at all, for Andrew’s voice was a solitary one and the Aborigines were yet to receive some legitimacy from the Australian establishment and their Art to gain national and international recognition.

In this latter respect, Andrew’s intuition doubled by imagination, hard work and relentless effort in public relations eventually paid off, when he managed to interest Mr. Holmes a Court, the Australian businessman, to buy a whole collection of 27 paintings of Aboriginal Art, a collection which now sits in the Holmes a Court Gallery, East Perth .

At his own initiative and partly with his personal funding Andrew organised the first exhibition of Australian Aboriginal Art , ever to be shown abroad, in Paris, London and California. This represented the traveling exhibition of the work of Charlie Tjaruru Tjungurrayi, from Kintore in Central Australia.

Andrew died young, being the victim of a bomb at a hotel bar in Namibia where he was staying and to this day this murky business has not been elucidated: he was, at the time of apartheid intending to meet with some Namibian independentists, something which the South African secret services might not have viewed with great favour. Andrew’s remains were flown to Britain by the Australian Government for a family burial in his Somerset home village, Kingsbury Episcopi.

Andrew’s obituary appeared in the London Guardian, in the Aboriginal Law Bulletin, as well as other periodicals. He had a short but significant life whose legacy is still treasured by many today.

References:

• Vivien Johnson, “Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert: A Biographical Dictionary“,
  Craftsman House (January 2001), ISBN: 9768097817
• Vivien Johnson, “Once upon a time in Papunya“,
  UNSW Press (2010), ISBN: 9781742230078
• Review of the 2006 Exhibit of Papunya Tula at Holmes a Court
• Obituary in the “Aboriginal law Bulletin” (reprinted on this site)

External Links

• Papunya Tula on Wikipedia
• Obituaries for Andrew Crocker

Originally published in the Aboriginal Law Bulletin.

Friends and associates of Andrew Crocker were shocked and aggrieved to hear of his untimely death in Namibia in September.

He was killed in a huge bomb blast in the Continental Hotel in the main street of the Namibian capital, Windhoek. An Englishman by birth, and a naturalised Australian by choice, he spent several months of each year growing cider apples in Somerset, and the rest of the time in the Central Western Desert of Australia offering his skills and compassion to Aborigines engaged in making and marketing their art.

His extensive experience in the Australian desert saw him engaged in the difficult world of Aboriginal advancement, where so often self-styled supporters of Aboriginal enterprise ignore all important ethical questions in favour of economics and artistic acceptability.

After assisting Nugget Coombes in the mid-70s on Aboriginal affairs, Andrew was appointed art advisor in 1980 to the Aboriginal company, Papunya Tula. In this role he oversaw the consolidation of the company as one of the most successful Aboriginal-owned enterprises. By convincing both Australians and international art intellectuals to widen their perspectives of Western contemporary art to embrace the art of all cultures, he was instrumental in taking contemporary Aboriginal art out of the tourist shops and into art galleries.

Crocker’s last major project, the book and Australian traveling exhibition of the work of Charlie Tjaruru Tjungurrayi, from Kintore in Central Australia, addressed the common insensitivity to the individual Aboriginal interest, whilst making pointed reference to those who attempt to form bridges between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal culture, and who neglect to listen to the voices of the artists themselves.

He wrote:

“It almost goes without saying that it is not possible adequately to appraise an art form without considering the social context in which it arises. Further, where artists make certain assertions in their work I feel that we should pay the courtesy of listening to them if we patronise them. It seems to me more than distasteful to collect their work while turning a stony face to what they say, or to their circumstances.”

He believed that the discovery of Western painting materials offered Aborigines an opportunity to assert their identity, and that their recognition of this opportunity gave proof to their inherent adaptability as a people.

Andrew Crocker would always dwell on the true nature of achievement and was one of only a few cautionary voices particularly in this bicentennial year, to demand more information, but above all, to urge us to listen more carefully.

The Independent (London) – 6 October 1988

ANDREW CROCKER was a cider farmer, barrister, classicist and polymath – but above all, he was a man who cared passionately about tbe rights of the Australian aboriginal and tribal minorities worldwide.

Crocker’s death was a sad irony in the bicentennial year of Australia’s white settlement, a year which has so successfully highlighted the injustices suffered by Australian aboriginals. He spent most of his working life attempting to improve our understanding of the plight of black Australians, only to become the unwitting victim of black Africans struggling to overcome their own repressive regime, He was intending to visit the Kalahari to investigate the living conditions of the Ju/Wasi Bushmen when he was killed by a hotel bomb in the Namibian capital of Windhoek, placed by a nationalist freedom movement to draw attention to their cause.

Childhood tales of Amazonian tribes had marched with Crocker, growing to a vigorous concern for the under-represented indigenous minorities. This drew him naturally towards Australia from accountancy qualifications acqulred in London. Early life as a longshoreman in Port Darwin settled easily on a man who had been a Cambndge classics scholar at 16, but in 1972 he moved to Sydney to work within the Aboriginal Section of the Australian Council for the Arts. The cause of aboriginal art particularly engaged Crocker, since he was concerned that indigenous Australian artists should be seen to own and operate their businesses succesfully themselves. During this period, however, the land rights issue persauded him that the Establishment was better briefed than he in legal matters, so he returned to England in 1974 to read at the Bar.

Here he acquired a secondary love, in cider farming. He lived the remainder orhis life between Somerset apple orchards and the arid deserts of central Australia – home of the Pintubi and Walpiri tribe. He had a strong love of tbe land, and gained a deep contentment from tending his orchards.

After his return to Australia, Andrew Crocker was appointed, art adviser in 1980 to the Aboriginal Artis Company, Papunya Tulah, which based in Alice Springs. In this role, he oversaw the consolidation of the company as one of the most successful Aboriginal-owned enterprises, living for months out in the western desert, visiting and supporting his artists in their remote traditional lifestyle. A devotee of royal tennis. he was inseparable from his racquet, which would accompany him even to the deserts “on the
off chance of a game”.

He worked in a field where so often self-styled supporters of aboriginal enterprise ignore important ethical considerations in favour of economic and artistic acceptability. By convincing both Australian and international art intellectuals to embrace the art of all cultures, he was instrumental in taking contemporary art out of the tourist shops and into the art galleries.

Although nonconformist and individualistic, he benefited from a traditional background, rumoured to involve Imperial Russian heritage. This, combined with a formidable intellect and a delightful sense of humour, gained Crocker access to influential audiences here he was able to speak out for the Aboriginal. While working with Papunya Tulah, he organised an international touring exhibition of the artists’ work (the catalogue published Mr Sandman Bring Me A Dream), covering six countries in North America and europe.

Following this success, Andrew Crocker was commissioned to form the Melbourne Arts Centre Aboriginal Collection, and he recently organised a solo major retrospective touring exhibition within Australia of Charlie Tjaruru Tjungurrayi a Papunya artist for whom he had great respect. Tjaruru and other aboriginal friends visited Crocker at his Somerset home, assisting with the harvest on one memorable occasion.

His focus on minority affairs was broad. He took an active interest in indigenous land rights in Fiji, Papua New Quinea, Oceania and South Africa, and for the past 10 years he was a committee member of Survival International, advising them from his considerable experience of Australia.

Rupert Ridgeway

Andrew Gaubert Delamain Crocker, tribal rights advisor, born London 25 August 1945, died Windhoek Namibia 1 September 1988.