Qualla: Marribank

Marribank: Introduction

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Florence Rutter died in 1958, destitute, betrayed by a con man who stole her money and the funds of the Aboriginal Children's Trust she had established in London. Some said she died of a broken heart. The art collection she had championed - luminous bush landscapes painted by Noongar children at a government settlement in rural Western Australia - ended up in the hands of a New York collector, who eventually donated it to Colgate University in upstate New York, where it sat in a gallery for decades, largely forgotten. The paintings had crossed oceans. Their creators had not. They were children of Marribank, earlier known as Carrolup Native Settlement, and their story is one of forced removal, extraordinary talent, loss, and a long journey home.

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Marribank: Wards of the State

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1905, the Western Australian government passed an act declaring all Aboriginal and part-Aboriginal children wards of the state, granting the Chief Protector of Aborigines the legal power to remove them from their families. Children with European ancestry were particular target...

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Marribank: Sunset Landscapes from a Settlement

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, something unexpected emerged from Carrolup. Children at the settlement began producing artwork - vivid portrayals of the Western Australian bush at sunset, rendered with a sensitivity and skill that attracted attention far beyond the settlement'...

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Marribank: A Collection Lost and Found

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Rutter had assembled the collection to exhibit and sell on behalf of the children, working through the Aboriginal Children's Trust in London. But a con man robbed her of everything - her own savings and the Trust's funds alike. Destitute, she sold the collection to Herbert Mayer ...

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Marribank: Reclaiming the Story

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1987, community members launched a project to establish a Cultural Centre at Marribank. Two Noongar trainees, Tina Hansen and Cora Farmer, funded by the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council, worked with John Stanton at the University of Western Australia's Berndt Mus...

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Marribank: Toward Healing

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

After the settlement was abandoned, many of its buildings fell into disrepair. The dormitories, the classrooms, the administrative buildings where permission to marry was granted or denied - all succumbed to weather and neglect. In 2016, a project was launched to transform the si...

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