Bronwyn Bancroft

Visual Artist and Book Illustrator

bancroftBronwyn is a highly acclaimed Aboriginal artist and designer whose artworks have been collected by galleries and museums throughout Australia, in the USA and Germany. Exhibitions of her art have been shown in Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, The USA, France and Germany. A descendant of the Bunjalung people of New South Wales, Bronwyn grew up in the small country town of Tenterfield. She now lives in Sydney with her three children. She holds a Master of Studio Practice and a Master of Visual Arts from the University of Sydney and currently serves on the boards of Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative, the Copyright Agency Ltd (CAL) and the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME). 

Bronwyn graduated from the Canberra School of Arts in 1980, having developed a unique glowing style reminiscent of stained glass windows. She credits global Indigenous cultures and the artists Kandinsky, Miro and Georgia O’Keefe as influencing this style and believes in using a range of media and materials thereby diversifying her artistic practice. In 1985, Bronwyn established Designer Aboriginals, creating unique paintings, hand painted fabrics, illustrations for children's books as well as reproduction rights for publishing and print work. Her work in book illustration has been extremely successful.

RememberingLionsville smRemembering Lionsville was published by Allen & Unwin in February 2013. It is a beautifully illustrated biographical book based on her family history and the family's connection to country.

Come with me to my family's old house in Lionsville. It's full of memories. It's a special place. Uncle Pat calls it a secret place. We played in that old tin cubby, swam in the creek with the catfish, and fell asleep to the ribbip of frogs at night. And around the red cedar table we listened to the old people's stories. We learned a lot that way.

Bronwyn illustrated Diane Wolkstein’s adaptation, Sun Mother Wakes the World: An Australian Creation Story, which was published in April 2004 by HarperCollins, New York. It was named in the New York Public Library’s annual list Children’s Books 2004 - 100 Titles for Reading & Sharing, and was available in Australia through HarperCollins.

BigRainComingOther books Bronwyn have illustrated include Roland Harvey's Leaving (Penguin Books, 2000);  Big Rain Coming (see cover illustration), published by Roland Harvey Books and written by Katrina Germein (1999) - a beautiful book in which everyone and everything is waiting for the rain to finally come in a remote Australian outback settlement -; Sally Morgan's Just a Little Brown Dog, Dan’s Grampa and In Your Dreams, all released in 1997, and many others.

Bronwyn’s art is suitable for commercial adaptation and she has undertaken many projects for goverment agencies, museums, arts organisations and private enterprise. She was commissioned to paint a painting for IBM to represent the 2000 Olympics. Bronwyn was appointed as a Theme Designer by the NSW Centenary of Federation Committee for ‘Journey of a Nation - The Federation Parade’. This was the first national event of significance in 2001 and celebrated and acknowledged the significant historic and momentous achievements and challenges of Australia in the previous 100 years. There were up to 8000 people participating in the Parade which was broadcast live across Australia. Bronwyn was responsible for the design component of the ‘Nations within a Nation’ section which included 1 float, 4 different costume designs for 200 people, 10 props and 10 flags.

Bronwyn’s biography, by Ken Watson, appears in the Oxford Dictionary of Aboriginal Art.

Visit Bronwyn’s web site at www.bronwynbancroft.com to view examples of her art work.