Eddie Burrup

Eddie Burrup was an Indigenous Australian pseudonym of Anglo-Australian painter Elizabeth Durack.

Pictures, photographs and writings of Eddie Burrup begun to appear in 1994. Burrup was supposedly a former farm worker who was born 1915 in Western Australia and had begun to paint later in life. He gained some success during the Australian Aboriginal art movement during the 1990s. His works won awards and were selected for exhibitions for Aboriginal artists.

Deception

However, in March 1997 the real painter revealed herself; she was not an Indigenous Australian man but a white Australian woman, Elizabeth Durack. Durack claimed that her familiarity with Aboriginal life entitled her to create Aboriginal art through the "alter ego" of Eddie Burrup, claiming he was a compilation of various Aboriginal men in her mind and had become an important part of her creative process.

Controversy

Aboriginal critics were not pleased and Aboriginal gallery owner Doreen Mellor felt cheated. Durack was accused of appropriating Aboriginal culture for commercial purposes without permission. She insisted that she was speaking for Aborigines, but they did not appreciate the sentiment.

Durack continued to paint as "Eddie Burrup" until two weeks before her death in May 2000. Her daughter, Perpetua Durack Clancy, kept a website until the end of 2000 in the name of Eddie Burrup, with a note "Elizabeth Durack asserts the moral right to be identified as the substituent of Eddie Burrup".

External links

* [http://www.australianbiography.gov.au/durack/video4.html Video interview]
* [http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/IMP0067b.htm Australian Women biographical entry]