CANBERRA—Northern Territory indigenous artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye was in her 80s when she painted her first canvas.
Three decades on a selection of abstract works by the late artist is the largest collection by an Australian to exhibit internationally.
The National Museum of Art in Osaka Japan will tomorrow open a 120-piece retrospective of the artist who spent her life living and working in the desert.
The exhibition, valued at $30 million, will also feature at The Tokyo National Art Centre in May.
The Tokyo exhibition will be co-billed with works by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani and follow a Claude Monet exhibition that has attracted millions of people.
Curator Margo Neale described it as the first "blockbuster" exhibition for an Australian artist.
"It's being treated as an international blockbuster," she told AAP.
The exhibition is the ten-year dream of Osaka museum director Akira Tatehata.
Ms Neale said it is a risk for the museum that usually exhibits well-known the European impressionist artists.
"It's a ten year dream realised for him introducing Emily to Japan and it is a big risk because she is not heard of and the blockbusters that have come here in the past are only (Claude) Monet, (Paul) Cezanne, (Amedeo) Modigliani."
"She's unknown, it's a huge risk for everyone but he is so passionate about her work that he couldn't rest until he brought it to Japan."
She may be unknown in Japan but last year in Australia Kngwarreye's painting, Earth's Creation, sold for more than $1 million at auction - a record price for indigenous art.
A huge recognition for an artist who didn't paint her first canvas until she was in her 80s when a government funded art project was started in her community, Utopia, around 250 kilometres north east of Alice Springs.
Her first attempt at painting on canvas in 1988 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 eight years later.
Ms Neale believes the indigenous culture will be of particular interest to Japanese audiences.
"It has the absolute best of abstraction art, it's fresh, it's spontaneous, it's large, and it's masterly worked."
"But her work has followed a completely different pathway to the (Jackson) Pollock's and the (Claude) Monet's.
"On one hand it has a really contemporary appearance and on the other hand it is rooted in an ancient culture.
"It has a lot in common with Japanese philosophical thought and cultural positions it will really touch a nerve in Japan."
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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