The Artist

2025 Harold Joseph Thomas is a Senior Australian Contemporary Artist working in hard-edge abstraction which started with his Aboriginal Flag artwork in 1971. His work is a continuum of all that has been developmental and new in visual art.

Harold was born in 1947 in Alice Springs, Northern Territory. His mother was a Luritja woman and his father a Wombai man. Of his early Alice Springs years, Harold recalls many afternoons drawing and painting on scraps of butchers paper. At the age of seven he was separated from his parents and placed in an institution, South Australia’s St Frances House, an Anglican institution for Aboriginal boys.

Harold started out on the long journey as an artist after winning a scholarship to the South Australian School of Art in 1965. At Art School, Harold immersed himself in the lives of major players in the world of art from new resources available to him. Reproductions of work by Rothko, Picasso and de Kooning made a huge impression with their compositions and colour harmonies and set the tone for powerful emotive imagery. Their personal stories of experimentation, independence, hardship and success was motivational to a young man with a thirst for knowledge and confident that his future lay in the field of visual art.

In 1970 he started working as a survey artist at the South Australian Museum. He took advantage of the rich cultural collection, immersing himself in art and artifacts. “I was with the largest collection of Aboriginal artifacts in the world and I had virtually free access to it all,” he says. “I gleaned over every piece, every design. I felt there was something powerful and strong that was being expressed.”

While studying he got involved in the Aboriginal Civil Rights Movement. Abstract art was foremost in his thoughts and 1971 Harold created the bold artwork that was to become the Australian Aboriginal flag, first flown 9th July 1971 at NAIDOC Adelaide. To this day remains a strong and unifying symbol for Aboriginal rights and justice. “In my university days there was a question of identity amongst Aboriginal people,” Harold says. “People stood up during marches for civil rights to express their Aboriginal identity. The flag stood for all of that. The colours reflect an awakening of their emerging political consciousness.”

Harold returned to his homeland, the Northern Territory in 1972, settling in the Top End. His early work was a celebration of the magnificent landscape and unique wildlife. He was now a full time painter, supporting a young and growing family with his art.

The painting ‘Tribal Abduction’ showing a baby being forcibly removed from its mother by uniformed police and the church was selected and won NATSIAA in 2016. The next major work ‘Myal Creek Massacre,‘ Harold’s interpretation of an historically recorded genocidal event of an Aboriginal group being attacked by white drovers and station hands, was selected for the 2017 NATSIAA. ‘The Poison Chalice’ is a cynical look at the relationship between Aboriginal culture, the church, law and politics. “As a figurative artist, the human form and emotion is without question the greatest challenge for me to capture,” Harold says.

Harold Thomas has returned to his roots of the 1960’s. Expressing visual experience through hard-edged abstract canvasses of compelling colour planes and abstract shapes. He is visually invoking depth and abstruse compositions in this intuitive abstract work. Harold’s art has been widely collected world-wide and has paintings in the Australian Commonwealth, Northern Territory and Western Australian state collections. Please see THE ART page above.

2023 Sydney Opera House Exhibition

2023 Honorary Doctor of Arts, Charles Darwin University

2022 Australian Government purchased Aboriginal Flag design copyright

2021 Fiftieth anniversary of the Aboriginal Flag. Flown for the first time in a Land Rights march, Adelaide,
July Friday the 9th 1971

2017 Selected for NATSIAA, painting ‘Myal Creek Massacre’ Painting ‘Tribal Abduction’ hung in library
foyer Charles Darwin University

2016 Outright winner, Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Art Award (NATSIAA)
Darwin. Stopped painting figurative watercolours

2013 Exhibition “Irreverence to Colour” Territory Colours, Darwin 2005 Exhibition “Painter of Light” Territory Colours Darwin

2004 Finalist David Unaipon Literary Award, Qld University Press

2002 Exhibition Raintree Gallery, Darwin

1995 Aboriginal Flag proclaimed an official flag under the Commonwealth Flag Act.

1995 Chairperson, NT Stolen Generation Committee

1993 The Tenth National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the NT. Painting
“Bungalo Boy” purchased by the museum

1991 Print display at Tandanya S.A

1991 Print display at Sydney Opera House

1991 Print exhibition at Darwin Entertainment Centre Gallery

1991 Painted watercolours for a set of limited prints to commemorate 20 years of the Aboriginal Flag

1990 Group Exhibition “Balance 1990: Views, Visions, Influences”, QAG, Brisbane.

1990 Exhibition “Beauty of the North” Kimberley Kreations, Broome & Fremantle

1989 Exhibition “Masterworks”, Raintree Gallery at the Darwin Sheraton

1988 Exhibition “Top End Landscapes”, Framed Gallery, Darwin

1988 Exhibition “Living North” Esplanade Gallery, Darwin

1987 Official portrait artist for Northern Territory Government. Painted most Administrators and Chief
Ministers for display at Parliament House, Darwin.

1987 Exhibition “Northern Light” Birukmarri Gallery, Fremantle

1986 Commission for large panorama at Travelodge Darwin reception.

1986 Exhibition “New Works”, Framed Gallery, Darwin

1985 Selected to hang in the second National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of
the NT, Darwin

1985 Watercolours exhibition, Esplanade Gallery, Darwin

1984 Painting selected to hang in the inaugural National Aboriginal Art Award, Northern Territory Museum
of Arts and Sciences, Darwin

1975 BA Honours Level degree in Social Anthropology, Adelaide University

1973/74 Produced and Directed mythological play, “Pelicans Dream.”

1973 Illustrated Daisy Bates (Karbali)”Aboriginal Mythology Collection.

1972 Held first “Protest” Exhibition of Traditional Art.

1971 Designed the Aboriginal Flag

1970 First Aboriginal employed in a state museum, South Australian Museum

1969 First Aboriginal Art graduate in Australian from SA School of Art

1968 First exhibition of watercolours, Adelaide, opened by Don Dunstan

1966 Won a Scholarship to study art at the South Australian School of Art

1947 Born in Alice Springs, Northern Territory