(Group of Aboriginal people)

Drysdale was a pioneer in certain aspects of his subject matter. One of the most important of these was his depiction of Aboriginal people from Cape York Peninsula which began as a small series in 1952-53. Prior to this, artists had tended to depict the indigenous people either with cool ethnographic detachment, or in more satirical tones, as quaint survivors of a primitive race.

From the above series, 'Group of Aborigines' is a profoundly compassionate portrait of humanity and regarded as one of Drysdale's masterpieces.

Using an extremely minimal image of the Australian landscape as backdrop, the artist has stripped his subjects of any trace of false sentiment, and invested them with an entirely new sense of dignity.