Contemporary indigenous art is not often compared with Monet, Modigliani and Cezanne but a collection of works by a prominent Australian artist will soon hang alongside the impressionist masters in Japan.
The collection of 120 artworks by the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye has been selected for exhibition at the National Museum of Art in Osaka and the National Art Centre in Tokyo early next year.
The exhibition, valued at more than $30 million, is the largest collection of works by a single Australian artist ever to tour overseas.
National Museum of Australia curator Margo Neale said Japan had been interested in exhibiting works by the artist for almost a decade.
"Japan made repeated representations (to hold the exhibition) over the years and eventually they made representations at the highest diplomatic level at the end of 2005," Ms Neale said.
Ms Neale described the exhibition, which has mainly been drawn from private collections, as the first "blockbuster" exhibition for an Australian artist.
"The exhibition will follow in the steps of Monet, currently on display at the Tokyo Museum, which has drawn crowds of around one million people per month," she said.
"Emily's work will be co-billed with (Italian artist Amedeo) Modigliani and (French artist Paul) Cezanne."
Born in 1910, Ms Kngwarreye from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory, did not begin painting on canvas until she was in her 80s.
For most of her life, along with the rest of this community, her artwork revolved around mark making through ceremonial activity.
In 1988, eight years before her death, the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) conducted an art project with the community.
Ms Kngwarreye's first attempt at painting on canvas drew immediate attention from critics and within 12 months her work had been exhibited in three solo exhibitions across Australia.
She subsequently created about 3,000 works on canvas, the equivalent of one painting per day before her death. The value of her work is the highest of any indigenous artist and her painting, Earth's Creation , sold for more than $1 million at auction last year - a record price for indigenous art. Ms Neale said the culture presented through her art was of particular interest to the international audience.
"Emily's work satisfies the taste for the high modernist style but comes from an extraordinarily different source. "Works like Emily's strike the point because it is the best of abstract expressionism but the fact that it has ancient cultural roots.
"For the audience well nourished on euro-American art traditions, the exhibition is a great portal to indigenous Australian culture."
Utopia: the Genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye will open at the National Museum of Art, Osaka, on 26 February, 2008, and at the National Art Centre, Tokyo, on 28 May, 2008.
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