Aboriginal Art > Aboriginal Bark Paintings > Central Arnhem Land Art > David Malangi

David Malangi Daymirringu — Arnhem Land Bark Painter

1927–1999
Manharrŋu — Dhuwa moiety
Manyarrŋu language, Djinang language group
Mulanga, Glyde River, Northern Territory
Glyde River and Yathalamarra, central Arnhem Land
Milingimbi, Ramingining and Bula’bula Arts
Central Arnhem Land bark painting

David Malangi Daymirringu was one of the most influential Aboriginal bark painters of the twentieth century and a senior ceremonial leader of the Manharrŋu people of central Arnhem Land.

He became nationally famous in 1966 when his painting of the ancestral hunter Gurrmirringu was reproduced without permission on Australia’s first decimal one-dollar banknote. The controversy brought unprecedented attention to Aboriginal artists’ intellectual property rights.

However, Malangi’s importance extends far beyond the banknote. His paintings depict the ancestral history of the Glyde River, the sacred waterholes of Yathalamarra and the origins of Manharrŋu mortuary ceremonies.

Working predominantly with natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark, he developed a distinctive figurative style combining powerful ancestral figures, fine crosshatching, white stippling and inventive compositions.

He also created carved ancestral figures, painted hollow-log coffins and prints, becoming a leading figure in the development of Central Arnhem Land Art.

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Portrait of Aboriginal bark painter David Malangi wearing a brown hat and beige shirt, standing before an ochre painting featuring ancestral figures, ceremonial objects and intricate patterns.

David Malangi Biography

Early Life and Ancestral Country

David Malangi was born in 1927 at Mulanga, near the mouth of the Glyde River in central Arnhem Land.

He belonged to the Manharrŋu people, whose ancestral Country encompasses mangrove forests, tidal waterways and coastal lands around the Glyde River estuary.

Through his father, Malangi inherited ceremonial responsibilities associated with Manharrŋu Country and the ancestral hunter Gurrmirringu.

His mother’s Balmbi relatives belonged to Yathalamarra, an important freshwater waterhole north of Ramingining. Malangi maintained close relationships with both regions, and their ancestral narratives became the principal subjects of his paintings.

During his childhood, his family moved between their traditional lands and the Methodist mission established on nearby Milingimbi Island in 1923.

He spent intermittent periods at the mission, undertaking agricultural and other work. The settlement was bombed by Japanese aircraft in 1943, disrupting the lives of its Aboriginal residents.

Malangi subsequently returned to the mainland and eventually established his home at Yathalamarra, where he remained closely involved in ceremonial life.

Learning to Paint at Milingimbi

Malangi learned painting from his father and uncle, initially preparing designs for ceremonial purposes rather than for sale.

He observed senior men decorating bodies for ceremonies and painting hollow-log coffins used in mortuary rituals.

These activities taught him the relationships between ancestral narratives, clan designs and the responsibilities inherited through Country.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Malangi began producing bark paintings for collectors.

Milingimbi had already become an important centre for Aboriginal painting, where artists including Dawidi and Binyinyuwuy were developing strong individual reputations.

Within this environment, Malangi transferred inherited ceremonial imagery onto bark paintings intended for audiences beyond Arnhem Land.

His early works concentrated particularly on the ancestral events associated with his father’s Manharrŋu Country.

Aboriginal artist working on a traditional Arnhem Land bark painting, applying fine ochre designs with a brush, with other bark paintings visible in the background.

David Malangi and the Australian One-Dollar Note

In 1963, the Czech collector Karel Kupka acquired Malangi’s bark painting Funerary Rites of Gurrmirringu for a French museum collection.

Photographs of the work subsequently reached the designers preparing Australia’s new decimal currency.

Graphic designer Gordon Andrews incorporated Malangi’s composition into the reverse of the one-dollar banknote, introduced on 14 February 1966.

However, Malangi had not been consulted and permission to reproduce the painting had not been obtained.

The Reserve Bank eventually acknowledged the artist’s contribution. In September 1966, Malangi received $1,000, equivalent to payments made to other contributors to the banknote designs.

In August 1967, Reserve Bank Governor H. C. Coombs presented him with a commemorative medallion and fishing equipment.

Malangi used the money to purchase a boat, outboard motor and fishing net.

The episode drew attention to the inadequate recognition of Aboriginal artists’ intellectual property rights and the discriminatory laws restricting Aboriginal people’s financial independence.

Although it did not establish a definitive copyright precedent through a court judgment, the controversy became an important milestone in the recognition of Indigenous artistic ownership.

Malangi became affectionately known as “Dollar Dave”, reportedly enjoying the distinction of having his painting carried in millions of Australian wallets.

David Malangi Later Life

Malangi painted profusely through the 1970s as Aboriginal art was entering the forefront of the Australian art scene. In 1983 he was one of the first Aboriginal artists included in the Sydney Biennale. Later that year a suite of paintings appeared in Australian Perspecta at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. These paintings constituted an incontrovertible land rights statement. The paintings later contributed to a successful land ownership claim by his people.

Throughout the late 1980s, Malangi was sought out to participate in other major exhibitions. He was the face of Arnhem Land Art. Exhibitions included Dreamings: The art of Aboriginal Australia in New York.

Most of this period he spent painting in the freshwater region of Yathalamarra. He had four wives and many children.

David Malangi also got an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the Australian National University in 1996. In 1998 he received an Emeritus Award from the Australia Council. Doctor David Malangi was now world-famous. He died in 1999

In 2004 the national gallery of Australia held a major retrospective exhibition of his works. No Ordinary Place: The Art of David Malangi.

David Malangi bark painting from 1966 showing an ancestral figure, a winding snake and a tree, painted in red, yellow, black and white ochres with detailed ceremonial designs.

David Malangi’s Painting Style

Malangi developed a distinctive figurative style within the Central Arnhem Land bark painting tradition.

He worked predominantly with natural earth pigments, combining red and yellow ochres, white clay and black pigment on prepared eucalyptus bark.

His compositions often feature imposing ancestral figures outlined in white against deep red or black backgrounds.

Trees, branches and elongated bodies provide strong structural elements, while smaller animals and ceremonial participants fill the surrounding space.

Malangi used rarrk (fine crosshatching) to decorate figures, but also employed characteristic vertical brushstrokes and delicate white stippling.

These repeated marks create a shimmering effect associated with the ancestral significance of the imagery.

His figures frequently possess exaggerated limbs, prominent joints and strongly defined facial features.

Some paintings incorporate X-ray-like details, revealing skeletons and internal organs in a manner associated particularly with western Arnhem Land art.

Malangi continually experimented with composition, scale and perspective, producing numerous individual interpretations of recurring ancestral subjects.

David Malangi Painting subjects

David Malangi’s paintings principally explore the ancestral traditions of his father’s Manharrŋu Country around the Glyde River and his mother’s Balmbi Country at Yathalamarra. His subjects include ancestral hunters, ceremonial events, freshwater waterholes and the journeys of creation beings.

Although he returned to particular narratives throughout his career, his compositions changed considerably, reflecting his continuing experimentation with scale, pattern and the arrangement of figures.

Gurrmirringu — The Great Ancestral Hunter

The ancestral narrative of Gurrmirringu (the great ancestral hunter) was Malangi’s most important recurring subject.

According to Manharrŋu tradition, Gurrmirringu travelled through the country around the Glyde River, establishing sacred places and teaching people laws, songs and ceremonies.

He was a skilled hunter who gathered yams, nuts and bush fruits while hunting kangaroos, goannas, birds and other animals.

Following a successful expedition, he rested beneath a wurrumbuku (white berry tree) near a waterhole. While preparing his food, a darrpa (king brown snake) emerged from the base of the tree and fatally bit him.

His death established the first mortuary ceremonies performed by the Manharrŋu people, becoming the foundation of a ceremonial song cycle performed when clan members died.

Aboriginal bark painting by David Malangi showing Gurrmirringu as a large central figure surrounded by ceremonial participants, white berry trees and detailed Arnhem Land designs.

Malangi frequently depicted Gurrmirringu as a large central figure surrounded by ceremonial participants. Although the hunter appears to be standing upright, he is actually represented lying in state during his funeral.

His body is decorated with clan designs, while surrounding figures sing, dance and strike clapsticks.

The composition often includes the foods obtained during his final hunt, including yams, nuts and a butchered kangaroo. The dismembered kangaroo symbolises aspects of secondary burial, particularly the preparation of human remains for placement in a hollow-log coffin.

Above the figures, the branches of the white berry tree extend across the composition, its fruit represented by clusters of fine white dots.

In works such as Gurrmirringu the Great Hunter (1969), Malangi combined powerful ancestral figures with intricate ceremonial imagery.

He repeatedly returned to the narrative, sometimes concentrating on the hunt, the fatal snakebite or the funeral ceremonies.

David Malangi's Yathalamarra Waterhole (1985), an Aboriginal bark painting depicting aquatic creatures, waterlily leaves and intricate red, yellow and white ochre crosshatching.

Yathalamarra Waterhole — His Mother’s Country

During his later career, David Malangi increasingly painted Yathalamarra, the ancestral Country of his mother’s Balmbi people, north of Ramingining.

Yathalamarra consists of two connected freshwater waterholes associated with ancestral women, aquatic creatures and mortuary ceremonies.

According to Balmbi ancestral narratives, two spirit women created freshwater springs while travelling through the area. They gathered yams and waterlily bulbs before entering the water and becoming rocks. The site is also associated with the Evening Star, represented by a waterlily flower.

In Yathalamarra Waterhole (His Mother’s Story) (1985), Malangi depicted dirrpu (waterlily), waterlily bulbs, catfish and eels.

These creatures were more than representations of the natural environment. They expressed ancestral relationships connecting the waterholes, ceremonial knowledge and Malangi’s maternal Country.

The Djan’kawu Ancestors — Sacred Waterholes and Creation

Malangi also represented the Djan’kawu (ancestral siblings), important creation ancestors associated with the Dhuwa moiety.

The Djan’kawu travelled westward along the Arnhem Land coast, establishing freshwater wells, naming places and bringing forth ancestral populations.

Their journeys established relationships between clans, Country and ceremonial knowledge.

Malangi inherited rights to depict particular aspects of these traditions associated with Manharrŋu Country.

In some paintings of sacred wells, geometric framing designs represent the banks of the waterhole, while dark shapes in the corners signify approaching storm clouds.

The rising waters of the wet season recall the ancestral emergence of freshwater from the ground.

The red-tailed black cockatoo also appears in traditions associated with the Djan’kawu journeys.

Works such as Djawag’kuwu Waterholes at Dhamala (1995) demonstrate Malangi’s continuing engagement with ancestral places associated with these creation traditions.

David Malangi's 1995 bark painting Djawag'kuwu Waterholes at Dhamala, featuring a central black circle, radiating ochre and white crosshatched designs, and four black corner squares.

wo carved wooden sculptures by Aboriginal artist David Malangi, decorated with natural ochre pigments, white crosshatching and traditional Arnhem Land designs.

David Malangi Sculpture

Although primarily recognised as a bark painter, Malangi also created distinctive carved wooden ancestral figures and Aboriginal hollow-log coffins.

Among his most important sculptural subjects were Gurrmirringu and his wife.

A carved figure titled Gurrmirringu’s Wife, c. 1968, measures approximately 85 centimetres high and features a prominent projecting face.

Manharrŋu clan designs decorate the abdomen, while representations of the white berry tree extend across the chest, arms and thighs.

A carved dilly bag hangs across the figure’s back, with a snake painted upon its surface.

Another sculptural group, Gunmirringgu and His Wife, c. 1961, depicts the ancestral couple with white berry tree imagery and snakes coiling around their legs.

These rare sculptures reveal Malangi’s ability to translate ancestral narratives into three-dimensional forms.

The Importance of David Malangi

David Malangi was one of the pioneering artists who helped establish Aboriginal bark painting as a significant part of Australian and international art. A senior Manharrŋu ceremonial leader, he combined inherited ancestral knowledge with a highly individual painting style, demonstrating that traditional subjects could be continually reinterpreted without losing their cultural significance.

His influence extended beyond bark painting. In 1987–88, Malangi was a major contributor to The Aboriginal Memorial, conceived by Djon Mundine and created by 43 Arnhem Land artists. The installation comprises 200 painted djalumbu(hollow-log coffins) commemorating Aboriginal people who died defending their Country following European colonisation.

Malangi contributed ten hollow logs decorated with ancestral designs associated with Manharrŋu and Balmbi Country. First exhibited at the 1988 Biennale of Sydney, the memorial subsequently entered the National Gallery of Australia’s collection. Malangi participated alongside George Milpurrurru and Roy Burrunyula in the ceremony marking its installation in Canberra.

Malangi was also among the first Aboriginal artists represented in the Biennale of Sydney in 1979. His international reputation grew through exhibitions including Australian Perspecta and the São Paulo Biennial (1983), Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia in New York (1988), and Aratjara, which toured Europe during 1993–94.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he continued experimenting with new materials, including printmaking, works on paper and canvas. His large Gunmirringu Story (c. 1992), exhibited at Tandanya in Adelaide in 1994, demonstrated his willingness to explore new formats while maintaining his ancestral subjects.

His achievements were formally recognised with an honorary Doctor of Laws from the Australian National University in 1996 and the Australia Council’s Visual Arts Emeritus Award in 1998.

Following his death in 1999, the National Gallery of Australia organised No Ordinary Place: The Art of David Malangi(2004), a major retrospective examining his artistic development and cultural importance.

Although widely remembered for the reproduction of his Gurrmirringu painting on Australia’s one-dollar note, Malangi’s greater contribution was his role in bringing the artistic and ceremonial traditions of central Arnhem Land to national and international recognition. His work helped establish Aboriginal bark painting not simply as ethnographic material, but as an important and innovative artistic tradition.

David Malangi in Public Collections

David Malangi’s paintings and sculptures are represented in major Australian and international public collections, including:

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra — bark paintings and ten painted hollow logs in The Aboriginal Memorial.
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney — extensive holdings of bark paintings, including works from the Arnott’s Collection.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne — bark paintings and carved ancestral figures, including Durandur (Gurrmirringu, the Hunter’s Wife).
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide — Manharrngu Mortuary Rites (1967).
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth.
National Museum of Australia, Canberra — examples of his Gurrmirringu and waterhole paintings.
Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide.
Reserve Bank of Australia museum