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Minnie Pwerle was born in the early 20th century near Utopia, 

north-east of Alice Springs in central Australia. Utopia was a cattle 

station that was returned to indigenous ownership in the late 

1970’s. Minnie was one of the traditional owners of Utopia station.

The language Minnie spoke was called ‘Anmatyerre/Alyawarr’. 

Indigenous people have skin names and ‘Pwerle’ is a skin name, 

Minnie’s skin name. Although Minnie’s name is written as ‘Minnie 

Pwerle’, the ‘Pwerle’ part of her name is not Minnie’s surname, 

however, the ‘Minnie’ element of her name is specifically hers.

Minnie was one of six children, and had three sisters: Molly, Emily and 

Galaya.

In about 1945 Minnie went to jail for breaking the law. After Minnie 

got released from jail she had her first child Barbara who grew up and 

became prominent Indigenous artist Barbara Weir. Barbara Weir was 

one of the stolen generations, and was forcibly taken from her family 

at the age of nine, and her family believed she had been killed. 

However, Barbara was reunited with her family in the late 1960’s. 

After Barbara, Minnie went on to have six further children with her 

husband Jim Ngala, including Aileen, Betty, Raymond, Dora Mpetyane 

and two others. Minnie also had two grandchildren named Fred Torres 

and Teresa Purla who both grew up to have artistic backgrounds.

Minnie began painting in late 1999 when she was almost 80. When 

asked why she had not begun earlier, Minnie’s answer was “no-one 

asked me”. By the 2000’s, she was reported as living at Alparra, the 

largest of Utopia’s communities. Sprightly and outgoing, even in her 

eighties she could outrun younger women chasing goanna’s for bush 

food, and she continued to create art works until two days before her 

death on 18 March 2006. 

Minnie’s style of painting was spontaneous, and typified by “bold” and 

“vibrant” colour executed with great freedom. As with other artists of 

the central and western deserts, Minnie’s paintings included depictions 

and stories or features for which she had responsibility within her 

family or clan, such as the Awelye Atnwengerrp dreaming (or Women’s 

Dreaming). 

Minnie’s paintings include two main design themes. The first is free-

flowing and parallel lines in a pendulous outline, depicting the body 

painting designs used in women’s ceremonies, or Awelye. The second 

theme involves circular shapes, used to symbolise bush tomato, bush 

melon, and northern wild orange, among a number of forms of bush 

food represented in her works. Together, the designs were 

characterised as “broad, luminescent flowing lines and circles".

Minnie’s art was quickly added to major public collections such as the 

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of South Australia, 

National Gallery of Victoria and Queensland Art Gallery. Her works 

later formed the basis of a series of designer rugs. Minnie’s paintings 

were typically selling for $5,000 in 2005.

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